


Pseudonym

by Lucifer_BringerofLight



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:35:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 28,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28009314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucifer_BringerofLight/pseuds/Lucifer_BringerofLight
Summary: Alex is a brilliant scientist and a talented pilot. In the past years she had done extraordanary work for the Air Force. When she learns about the Stargate, she knows that she must join the program. And she does. Which leads to some intresting and some very strange experiences. Among others she meets her long dead brother again, travels through realities and even dies once.
Relationships: Daniel Jackson/OC, Samantha "Sam" Carter/Jack O'Neill, Samantha "Sam" Carter/OC
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

When the doorbell rang, she had been trying to figure out how to locate the endpoint of a wormhole. Something she had been discussing with a colleague for some time now. She had been a little surprised by the sound, but welcomed the break. Or more precisely, she had welcomed the break until she had opened the door and found two lieutenants of the Air Force standing in front of her. Of course, she was somewhat used to seeing soldiers, but having them show up late at night on her front door? That was definitely something she didn’t like.

“Are you Dr Jim Alexander?”

She nodded slowly, wondering what they wanted from her.

“We must ask you to come with us, your presence has been requested in a matter of utmost importance to the national security.”

Odd. Very odd. And vague, but that she was used to form the Air Force. Raising an eyebrow at the men in front of her, Jim sighed. Who was she to disobey such politely delivered orders? So she gave the men a quick nod and returned inside to get her laptop and the bag she had always pack for emergencies. One of the lieutenants took it off her, leaving her only with her handbag. They escorted her to a SUV.

Early morning, they arrived at a military facility called Cheyenne Mountain Complex, in Colorado. The two lieutenants that had so far accompanied her now left. In their stead a sergeant came and escorted her to an office, where he knocked and peaked inside

“Dr Alexander would be here now.”

“Bring him in.”

The sergeant nodded at Jim and stepped aside to let her enter. Which she did. Inside was a General, sitting at his desk, looking equally exhausted as she was. Though his expression changed from tired to astonished as he saw her.

“Dr Alexander?”

“Yes Sir.”

“Jim Alexander?”

“Yes Sir.”

Still astonished, he nodded.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think you were a woman. However, that does not matter right now. Please sit.”

So she did and he handed her a cup of coffee, which she gratefully took.

“You certainly wonder why you have been brought here in this manner.”

“The question crossed my mind once or twice.”

The general mustered a smile, before continuing seriously.

“Major Carter told me, that you were an expert on wormholes?”

“I am considered one, yes.”

“Very well. What I will tell you now is top secret and must remain so for the sake of everyone.”

“Yes Sir.”

Before the general, who now introduced himself as General George Hammond, told her anything he had her sign an agreement of confidentiality. After that, he took her to the adjoining room. A conference room with windows on one side, looking into a large room with a giant, upright stone circle in it.

“What you see down there is called a Stargate. It enabled us to establish a stable wormhole between this Stargate and one on other planets.”

“Stable wormholes?”

“Yes Doctor. But Major Carter will be more qualified to explain this to you. She is our expert on that matter.”

“Wait, Dr Sam Carter?”

“Yes. She is the one that requested your help. Two days ago, she and her team were attacked while on an alien planet. Major Carter got separated from the rest when she was knocked unconscious. As it seems, the leader of the team drew the attackers away from her in order to prevent her capture. However, when Major Carter woke up again, he and the other two team members were gone.”

Jim nodded silently, still unsure what she had to do with all this.

“Since she came back, Carter has tried to figure out where her team was taken. Apparently, she has been working on a theory on how to locate a destination, after the connection has been severed.”

“And here I come in as I have been too.”

“More successfully, I might add.”

Surprised by the new voice, both turned around to see a blond woman standing behind them.

“Dr Alexander, I presume.”

“Yes.”

“You’re a woman.”

“So are you. Tell me, Dr Carter, what have you done so far to find them?”

“Well, I’ll leave you to it. Doctor, you are given a guest quarter for the time you’ll be here. Major Carter can show it to you later.”

He nodded and returned to his office. The scientist, too, left the room, going to Dr Carter’s lab, while she filled Jim in.

“So, to be clear, all those things we’ve been discussing as theoretical, you have not only known to be true, but have actually practically applied them?”

Carter seemed a little uncomfortable as she agreed.

“Once we’ve rescued your team, you must tell me all about it. Now, however, explain to me how the Stargate works exactly.”

It was around midday when Jim had fully understood the functionality of the Stargate and began to comprehend everything she had been told so far.

“How about we take a break and get something to eat before we start working on a solution? Giving you a little time to deal with all that.”

“Excellent idea.”

So, they went for dinner. While sitting in the cafeteria, they talked a little.

“I really didn’t expect you to be a woman. I mean, Jim isn’t a woman’s name.”

“Well, no. It’s just the short form of Jamie, but Dr Jamie Alexander sounds a little unprofessional. Jim Alexander sounds a lot better. I, by no means, intended to deceive you, my apologize. But, if I may, I hadn’t expected you to be a woman either, Sam Carter.”

That made Carter laugh, “You’re right.”

Soon after, they retuned to Sam’s lab, and began working on a solution. But they couldn’t find anything that was neither impossible nor completely ludicrous. Eventually, they had to give up for the night, since Jim hadn’t slept in more than two days and was barely able to stay awake anymore. The upcoming days didn’t change that. They hadn’t talked much about anything other then the problem at hand. Until, on Jim’s fourth day at the base, after another idea turned out to be impossible, she sighed deeply and turned around to Sam.

“Tell me about that team of yours. I’m tired of staring at a screen.”

Sam nodded, one could only stare at a screen for so long without going crazy. She reached at a picture frame, handing it to Jim.

“That’s them. The tall, muscular one is Teal’c. He’s a Jaffa. An alien. That one here is our Colonel, Jack O’Neill and the skinny one is Dr Daniel Jackson, he’s our archaeologist and linguist.”

Slowly, Jim nodded, shocked by the smiling face of Jonathan O’Neill. He looked older than the last time she had seen him, then again, he was. Only after a few moments, Jim realised that she not only recognized him but also the name of the third man, though they had never met, they had been corresponding with each other for almost three years now. 

“You actually somewhat remind me of Colonel O’Neill, you have a similar humour.”

Corresponding… of course! Stargates had to be communication with each other in order to establish wormholes.

“I think I’ve got an idea!”

“Really? How? What?”

“Tell me, how do you dial the Gate on other planets. Here you use a computer build for that purpose.”

“The DHD, Dial Home Device. It’s practically our computer just in better.”

“So, it is a computer?”

“A very advanced one, but I guess yeah. Why?”

The vague idea began to turn into a solid theory.

“I think we’ve approached that all wrong. We don’t have the technology to recreate the path of a wormhole after it disestablished, we barely can follow an active one. But what if the DHD saves dialled addresses?”

“But that would mean we could just look up the address in the DHD’s system and dial it”

“Just like a ring back key!”

Sam’s face lit up in excitement, then she frowned, “I’m not sure if I can find the right address by myself.”

“Take me with you. Together we should manage, and then we go rescue your friends.”

Sam sighed, though she liked the idea, it would be very hard to sell to the General to bring along a civilian without any training.

She had been right, General Hammond was anything but happy about the proposition.

“Definitely not, Major. You can’t bring a civilian on a rescue mission!”

“We bring Daniel along all the time! He’s a civilian too. You brought her in so that she can help me find them. I still need her help! Please, Sir. It may be our only chance to get them back.”

“Who will be held accountable if something goes wrong? What if something happens to her? What if she is killed?”

“Then _she_ will die saving lives.”

Until now, Jim had quietly listened to the debate, but now had enough

“Sir, if I may, I am a grown woman, responsible for my own decisions. I want to go on this mission. And yes General, I am aware of the dangers. This isn’t my first rescue. And I doubt it will be my last, Sir. I am capable of defending myself if it becomes necessary. Please let me help. It’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

For several moments, the General looked back and forth between the women, then sighed.

“If you insist. Major, you will be accompanied by SGs 9 and 12. You leave in an hour. Get her ready. Please bring them all back alive.”

“Yes Sir, thank you.”


	2. Chapter 2

An hour later, Jim, Sam and ten other, highly harmed people stood in the Gateroom.

“You nervous?”

“Mostly curious, to be honest.”

Sam chuckled, then turned towards the Gate, as it was dialled. A giant blue fountain came out of it and vanished. Then a watery surface appeared in the circle.

“Fascinating.”

Once on the planet, Jim was all business. She and Sam went over to the DHD, while the soldiers took position around them. Quickly, they managed to connect a laptop to the system and within a few minutes, they had found several Gate addresses.

“How do we know which one it is?”

“That one.”

Jim pointed at the second last one that had been dialled.

“How do you figure?”

“Deduction. How high do you think the chances are for some kidnappers to randomly be on this planet and then leave and never come back?”

“Not very high, I suppose. Wait, are you suggesting this is their hunting ground?”

“Something like that, yes. And this address has been dialled repeatedly, so it sounds like a reasonable first choice, doesn’t it? If not, I’ll save the others and we’ll go to the next likely planet until we find them.”

Colonel Johnson, who was in charge of this mission, looked at Jim for a few moments, then nodded.

“Sounds like an idea.”

And thus, it was decided, they dialled the address and went through.

On the other side they found themselves a warehouse of some sorts. A strongly secured warehouse with guards, who shoot at them the moment they stepped trough. Jim was one of the last to go and walked right into a gunfight. One of the soldiers had been hit and now lay next to her on the ground. She fetched his machine gun from him, taking his position. Within minutes all guards in the room were out and silence fell. Johnson turned around to Jim, raising an eyebrow.

“You actually do know how to defend yourself.”

Then he looked around, assessing the situation, the soldiers Jim had taken the gun from was still out cold, another one injured.

“Watson, Donavan and Martinez, you stay here and guard the Gate and take care of O’Hara. Carter, Alexander, Black and I will take the left door, the rest of you go right. Alexander thinks that there are more prisoners here, send them here, but concentrate on SG 1. Go!”

Jim was slightly surprised that she was included, but fell into her role as a soldier immediately. They went through the door and found an armoury.

“Those are SG uniforms!”

Black held up a bullet proof vest. And really, it was US military design. Next to a second vest lay other items that were part of the standard equipment for members of the US military. C4, guns, magazines, even the boots.

“This looks like souvenirs. And like a lot of them. there must be several hundreds of people here.”

“What do you think this is? A prison?”

“Nah, they usually leave prisoners their boots. And those are children’s shoes. I think this is some kind of concentration camp or… a slave market.”

Following Johnson into the next room and Jim was proven right. The room was filled with cages as far as they could see. The first two were full of children. At least fifty of them, crowded together liked animals. And even though there was not much room in the cages, they all tried to back away from the soldiers as far as they could.

“Cover me!”

Jim lowered her gun and slowly approached the cage.

“It’s okay. We don’t want to hurt you.”

Turning around to Sam, Jim continued to speak in the same soothing, calm voice.

“What can that weapon do?”

Sam had taken a large staff from the armoury.

“Is it strong enough to open the lock?”

“I think so.”

“Okay. Listen, all of you have to go to the far side of this cage, okay? Get away form the door as far as you can, yes?”

Some of the children nodded and pushed towards the other end, taking the rest with them. Jim turned back to Sam.

“Carefully.”

Sam aimed at the lock and shot. A red energy came out of the weapon, blowing open the door. She then did the same to the second cage. The children screamed in horror, but soon realised they were free. Before they could get them out of there, guards came in, alarmed by the screams, and began to fire randomly at everything that moved.

“Hide, quickly!”

The children ran around in panic, but took shelter as soon as they found a place to hide. So had the other three soldiers, expect for Jim. She stood in the middle of the room, drawing the fire away from the children, while taking out as many opponents as possible. As she did, she slowly moved towards them, ignoring the screams of Johnson ordering her to take cover. Soon, she was within reach of the guards and used her machine gun as a baseball bat, hitting a guard on the head with it. He groaned and collapsed. But Jim didn’t stop to see it, she had already jumped at the next one, kicking him in the stomach, while shooting the third one. Jim had always been better at close combat. Now only one guard was left, the rest were taken out by Johnson and the team, the last one however, had apparently decided that fighting Jim wasn’t really what he wanted to do and instead was aiming at the children with a weapon similar to the one Sam had used. He took a shoot at a little girl not far from Jim, who upon seeing that, let go of the man she had just knocked out and jumped towards the kid, trying to get her out of the way, then she went down.

Holy hell, that hurt! Jim pushed herself up from the ground to see that all the guards were taken out and the kids gone. Sam was hovering over her, her face worried.

“Are you okay?”

“Sure, I’ve done worse things. Are the children hurt? Where are they?”

She must have passed out for a moment. Not a good sign, but nothing that would stop her.

“Black took them to the Gate. Can you go on?”

After taking a deep breath, Jim grabbed the weapon and got up again.

“Let’s find our people.”

In the following two rooms where similar to the second one, two cages with several people inside. Luckily, no children this time. But no SG 1 either. Then they entered a fourth room. It was dark, almost too dark to see anything. They barely could see the guards before they opened the fire on them. What Jim could see, however where several very small cages, three of them maned by what appeared to be SG1. Sam, who must have seen that too, fired the staff weapon at them again, opening them. Jim, Sam and Johnson each made their way to one of cages as the inhabitant didn’t move, while Black, who had by now returned to the team, gave them cover.

Dr Jackson, who Jim had taken, as she saw when she was close enough, was tied up at both hand and feet, and by the look in his eyes not fully conscious. But before she could get her knife out to sever his ties, Jim felt a soaring pain in her belly. Groaning, she fell on her knees. From far away, she could hear Black yell her name, but she didn’t understand what else he said, she didn’t really care anyway. Right now, only two things mattered to her, get Dr Jackson and get the hell out of here. Fumbling out the knife, she crawled into the cage, first cutting him loose, and then pulling him out with her. As she had expected, his participation was rather low, but with the combined rest of their strength, they managed to support each other enough to make their way back to the Gate. Neither Teal’c nor O’Neill were off any better than Daniel and Johnson, too, had taken a bullet. At the Gate, the others were busy getting everyone back to their own planets, but Jim didn’t notice much of that. As soon as she reached the Gate, she collapsed on the steps leading up to it. O’Neill and Teal’c were sat down next to them. Indistinctly, Jim heard someone ask her if she was okay, which she answered with a nod. For all she could tell, the bullet hadn’t hit anything vital. She pulled the first aid kit out of her bag and patched up the wound. That would be enough for now.

Jamie didn’t really notice how much time passed, but at some point, Sam pulled her to her feet. The room was empty now, except for the SG Teams. But they left now too, returning to earth. Several of them had been injured, but no one had died, and they had rescued a hell lot of people, so Jim considered it a broad victory.


	3. Chapter 3

Later, when her injures had been treated, Jim lay in the infirmary. Dr Fraiser had ordered her to remain there for at least two days, which Jim thought was a little long, but she wasn’t in the mood to argue. Nevertheless, she wasn’t in the mood to pointlessly lay around for two days either. So she had decided that walking around, visiting Dr Jackson or one of the others wasn’t really disobeying the order since she would leave the infirmary. Jackson was easily found. He lay in a bed not far from her, reading a book.

“Good morning, Dr Jackson.”

At first, Jackson was a little surprised to be approached by someone he didn’t know, but after a few moments he recognised Jim and smiled. 

“You were on the rescue mission.”

“Yes. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Dr Jackson.”

“The pleasure is all mine, after all you saved me and took a bullet for me.”

“yes, that too. But I have been looking forward to meeting you for quite some time now.”

“Do I know you?”

“Oh, you do. We have been corresponding for almost three years now.”

Jackson frowned, then he understood what she meant.

“You are Jasmine Buchanan?”

Jim smiled somewhat embarrassed, but then nodded.

“What are you doing here?”

“That is a very long story. I’ll tell you some other time. How are you?”

A little astonished by the not very subtle change of topic, Jackson needed a moment to answer.

“Not bad. After a good night’s sleep, I feel almost like me again. According to Doc Fraiser, the drug is almost out of my system by now.”

“Drug?”

“Yeah, they drugged us. Teal’c and Jack more than me. Teal’c is fine, thanks to his symbiont. But Jack… they gave him a lot. He’s still unconscious. And… he’s not doing so well. The drug is intended to keep us tranquil, but too much of it apparently has some sort of hallucinogen effect.”

Jackson nodded towards the bed next to him, which was shut off with a curtain.

“He’s agitated. Like he’s having a bad nightmare.”

Poor Jack. Jamie wondered what he could be dreaming about, but Jackson answered that question.

“Now he’s quiet again, earlier he kept mumbling about a Lexi, and about how sorry he was, that she should come home.”

Jamie sighed, but didn’t respond. There was nothing she could say that wouldn’t sound like a meaningless phrase. So, she returned to her bed deeply in thoughts.

In the evening, when the infirmary had gone quiet, she got up again. Dr Jackson had been allowed to leave in the afternoon and Teal’c hadn’t been at the infirmary for very long, so the only people here at the moment were O’Hara, Johnson, Johnathan and her, the first two fast asleep on the other side of the room. Jack was still unconscious.

Jamie sat down on a chair next to his bed. For some time, she sat in awkward silence. There was nothing she could say to him, and really, there was no point in saying anything, really. He was unconscious after all, he wouldn’t hear her anyway, right? Jim was thinking about returning to her bed when he grew agitated again and began to toss around like was in pain. No, she realised, he was trying to chase away an unpleasant memory.

“Lexi, please, no! … I’m sorry, Lexi, I’m so, so sorry. … Please come back!”

Never before had she seen Jack that way and it pierced through her heart like a dagger.

“He has been like that all day.”

Dr Fraiser showed up next to her, frowning worriedly.

“I wish I could sedate him…”

“No… no. Please, come home… I never meant too… I love you, Lex… please just come home.”

“Too risky, you don’t know what they gave him. Might just give him the rest.”

The Doctor nodded gravely, “I wonder who that Lexi is, he’s talking about.”

“His daughter.”

Only after she answered, Jim realised what she had done. Fraiser raised an eyebrow in astonishment, apparently, he had never told anyone that he had a daughter.

“He had a son, I know that. But he never mentioned a daughter.”

More than shrugging her uninjured shoulder, Jim didn’t do. Why should she? She didn’t know why Jack had never told anyone about his daughter and now was calling for her.

“He must have had his reasons not to tell you.”

“Do you know what happened with the daughter? I mean… where she is?”

“He doesn’t know himself. Hasn’t seen her for years.”

It was strange talking about herself in third person.

“Why? What happened? I’m sorry, none of my business.”

Fraiser apparently had realised how personal her questions were and that Johnathan might not even want her to know any of it. If he had, he would have told her.

“I think he never told anyone about her because he doesn’t want to think about her.”

Fraiser didn’t really understand, but didn’t care about it too much. She was more worried about her friend and patient. Well, both her patients.

“You should get back to bed, Dr Alexander. You have, after all, been shoot in the belly and have severe burns on the shoulder. You need rest.”

“I would like to sit with Johnathan some more, if that is okay?”

The doctor nodded and left, mumbling something that she never heard anyone call him Johnathan. To be honest, neither had Jim. She was the only one to call him that and she had only started that out of spite.

“Don’t go, Lexi… please don’t go!”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

She sighed deeply and closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, she gently took his hand between hers,

“I’m right here. Right here. And I won’t go away before we talked. I promise.”

“My Lexi.”

“You need to rest, Johnathan. To get back your strength and wake up again. You hear me? I’m here now, so don’t you dare dying before we had a lengthy talk about… that!”

To her own surprise, Jack relaxed again, and his pulse went down. He was peacefully asleep now.

“Yes, sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

Before Jim could talk to him the next day, she was visited by General Hammond.

“How are you doing?”

“Fine. Nothing that won’t heal.”

He nodded relieved, “Colonel Johnson told me, you were quite a good fighter. Said you took out several men out all by yourself.”

Jim shrugged her shoulders, remembering too late that she had burns on one of them and groaned.

“General, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something.”

“Okay?”

As she had expected, Hammond was slightly confused by that statement. Well, he would be a lot more confused later.

“I would advise that we have this conversation in the presence of Colonel O’Neill, seeing as it somewhat concerns him, too.”

Growing increasingly confused, Hammond agreed, and they went over to O’Neill’s bed, who had woken up in the early morning and was now sitting in his bed, looking rather bored.

“Good morning, Sir.”

O’Neill looked up from his breakfast and his eyes widened in surprise.

“You… you are real?”

“Yes, Sir, I am.”

“I thought you were a dream.”

“No Sir. I’m real and I’m here.”

Taking a deep breath, Jim turned to Hammond.

“General, I’m afraid I haven’t been completely truthful with you. My name is not, as you think, Jim Alexander, neither is it Jasmine Buchannan as Dr Jackson believes. Both of those names are aliases I have used to publish scientific papers. My real name is Alexandra Jasmine O’Neill. I am a Major of the US Air Force.”

She glanced towards Jack, who looked at her expectantly, but also uncertainly.

“But also, I am Colonel O’Neill’s daughter.”

A little overwhelmed, Hammond blinked a few times, then nodding before shaking his head. He struggled to fully comprehend what he had just been told.

“Is that true, Colonel?”

Jack nodded, “She is my daughter. Though I haven’t seen her since she was thirteen. So, I don’t know anything about scientific papers and aliases.”

“Of course you don’t.”

Jim knew she sounded bitter, but she didn’t really care.

“Why have you only now told me, Major?”

“I saw no reason to correct the mistake. Your people came to my house, asking me if I was Dr Alexander, which I agreed on. Since I wasn’t here as a soldier but as a scientists, it wasn’t relevant. I apologize for the deception.”

Hammond frowned, apparently not agreeing with the assessment of whether or not it was relevant. Then he sighed and nodded.

“Sir, if I may?”

O’Neill finally turned away from Jim, looking at the general.

“I don’t think Lex has meant to deceive you for any malicious reasons. I assume, she… I don’t know why she did it, but I am convinced she meant no harm.”

“I did not. But I try to keep my researched separated from my work at the military. I had no intention of getting engaged in any combat until I learned that both Dr Jackson, who I have been corresponding with for several years, as well as my father, were among the captives.”

“I understand. Let’s just forget about it, then. I leave you two alone now, you must have a lot to talk about.”

Nothing she actually wanted to talk about, Jim thought. But they had to, she knew that. It wouldn’t help avoiding the topic for another ten years. The general nodded and walked off, leaving them in an awkward silence.

“So, what have you been doing since you ran away?”

“I didn’t ran away. Mother told me to get out and never come back, so I didn’t. But I didn’t expect you to know that.”

He looked astonished and shocked, but that was to be expected of a father, who had just learned, that his daughter had been thrown out by her mother when she was just thirteen years old.

“Why would she do that?!”

Jamie didn’t really want to tell him, but when she remembered how he had yesterday begged for her to come home again and how happy he had looked when he had just seen her, she decided he deserved to know the whole story.

“She disagreed with my life choices.”

“I’m sure she just wanted what’s best for you.”

“She wanted me to make money as a surgeon. She didn’t give a crap about me or what I wanted.”

“What did you want, then?”

“Definitively not medical school. I hated it, every second of it! It disgusted me, dissecting bodies made me nauseous. Which I had told mother repeatedly. She wouldn’t listen, told me not to be such a wuss. Not that that was the main problem. Anyways, after I finished medical school, she wanted me to continue and become a neurosurgeon. The idea sickened me, and I refused. She punished me, as she always did, by locking me in the cellar without food for several days.”

He shot up in his beat, starring at her in horror.

“She did what!?!”

“Please, Johnathan, you could have noticed it quite easily if you had been home more often or had paid attention on the rare occasions that you actually were there.”

Jack shut up, looking like he might throw up, but he gestured her to continue, which she did. He had to know, didn’t he? At some point, he had to know why she left.

“Anyways, this wasn’t the reason I left, though I suppose it contributed to it. The reason she threw me out was because she saw me kissing a girl.”

Jim stopped for a moment, anxious about his reaction, but he still just looked sick.

“She was outraged, scandalised, whatever. Told me I was a disgrace and would go to hell, and that she wouldn’t accept an atrocity like me in her house. I left and moved to my grandparents, who took me in.”

“My parents?!”

“Yes, your parents.”

“But I asked them if they knew where you were, if you had talked to them.”

“I know, they told me. I asked them not to tell you. I wasn’t sure what you would do if you found me and I really didn’t want to go back.”

Jack buried his face in his hands, looking more desperate and hurt than she had ever seen him.

“I didn’t know you, Johnathan. I had met you, what, twice a year, a week each time? And your parents… they were good to me, allowed me to study whatever I wanted.”

“And what was that? What did you study? God, I don’t know anything about you. I’m a terrible father, I’m so sorry.”

Jim could see that he was deeply sorry and to her surprise, some of her resentment faded away.

“Linguistics, archaeology, anthropology and history and later changed to biology, chemistry, astrophysics and quantum mechanics.”

“I always knew you were brilliant, but I could replace two of my team members with you.”

“Sam and Dr Jackson, yes. With both I have been in contact with.”

Talking of which, the rest of SG1 had just entered the infirmary and joined them

“It’s good to see you awake, Sir.”

“It’s good to see you well, too, Major.”

Both Sam and Johnathan smiled for a moment, before Sam turned to Jamie,

“Jim, how are you doing?”

That made Jack laugh, “Jim? Since when do you go by Jim?”

“A good question”, Jackson agreed.

Teal’c, the only one who didn’t know her, look confused as to what this was about. Jim sighed, she had hoped to keep that secret for some time longer.

“Jim was my grandpa’s idea.”

Johnathan raised an eyebrow, but kept quiet.

“My real name is Alexandra O’Neill. I chose to publish under pseudonyms since, when I published my first paper, I was a minor and feared it would not be taken seriously.”

And of course, she was worried, that she had to go back to her mother.

“I chose Jasmine Buchannan. My second name and my grandmother’s maiden name. Even though I was 18 when I published my first biology paper, I decided to publish it under a pseudonym too, because I had gotten used to it. I chose, however, to use another name for those subjects.”

“But why Jim Alexander?”

“Well, I couldn’t use Buchannan again and needed a last name, so I turned my first name into one and Jim comes, as I told you already, from Jamie, and that’s how my grandpa called me.”

“But, as you already said, Jamie wasn’t the most professional name, thus Jim.”

“Yes.”

“Just one question left” Jack said, “Why join the Air Force?”.”

That surprised the rest as they hadn’t known yet. Yeah, ups.

“After I was done studying, I needed a new occupation and the Air Force sounded interesting. I don’t even know why, but I did, and I became a pilot and later worked with search and rescue, rescuing hostages in war zones.”

“Which was why you had no problems with the mission, since it was pretty much what you’re used to.”

“More aliens than usual, but aside from that? Yes.”

Sam laughed and nodded, “We’ll let you rest now, Sir. I have some work to do.”

She left and so did Teal’c, only Daniel remained, but walked back to Jim’s bed with her.

“So, Alexandra?”

“Call me as you please. Jasmine, Jim, Alexandra, hell, call me Cupcake if you want to. Even though the name is different, I am me, Jim, Alex, Jasmine, Jamie, that’s all me.”

He nodded smiling, “It really is a pleasure to meet you, Cupcake. And now that you know about the Stargate, I can show you so many extraordinary things.”

“I would love to see those things. Sadly, Dr Fraiser disapproves of me being up at all, I don’t think she would let me leave.”

“Well, then I’ll bring you some research I’ve been doing. Are you interested in learning alien languages?”

“Absolutely!”

Soon later, Daniel sat at her bed, several books spread over the covers, teaching her the basics of the Goa’uld. The Goa’uld, so he told her, where snake symbionts, capable of taking over a host completely, led by so called Systemlords, who considered themselves gods, their servants were called Jaffa, and they carried the symbionts in their belly until they were mature, then would be taken over by them. One of them was Teal’c, he used to be the most trusted servant of one of those Systemlords until he betrayed him and now worked with the SGC hoping to free his people from slavery.

“I told you to rest, Major.”

Apparently, Hammond had informed Fraiser about her true identity. Right now, the Doc didn’t care about that, however, she was mad that Lex wasn’t resting.

“I am. I’m in my bed, I didn’t leave the infirmary, and I just went to see how Colonel O’Neill is doing, nothing more.”

Okay, not true, she had made a short trip to General Hammond’s office, but that was only five minutes.

“You were badly injured, Major, please keep this in mind.”

“I have been hurt worse, and yes, Doctor, I will be careful.”

Fraiser nodded, then sighed, “I’m beginning to think it would be better if I let you return to your quarters, so you can do whatever you’re doing there, hoping that will keep you from getting up all the time.”

“Only, if you think it’s advisable. Otherwise, I’ll stay right here and promise not to get up unnecessarily. Thanks to Daniel, I have enough to read until I leave in two days.”

If Jim had learned one thing during the last years at the Air Force, it was never to mess with the Doctors. They always won, and there would eventually come a day when she needed their help and it was better if they weren’t mad at her then. Fraiser seemed a little surprised by that, she had expected her patients to jump up and run out, but was pleased.

“For now, you need to rest!”

Reluctantly, Jim nodded, and Daniel left her alone, leaving his books there.


	4. Chapter 4

Two days later, soon after breakfast, Fraiser decided that Jamie was good to go, if she took it slow. Alex agreed and was dismissed. Her first way was to General Hammonds office, where he already expected her.

“Major, Dr Fraiser told me you were released.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“I assume you know that both Dr Jackson and Major Carter have requested for you to stay longer as they both believe you to be a valuable asset.”

“Yes Sir, they told me.”

“What do you say?”

Since she didn’t have anything else to do, not for the next two months, anyways, the prospect of staying here a little longer were exciting. After that…

“Sir, may I ask, are you familiar with the work I have been doing during the last five years?”

“You have been part of the search and rescue division, as far as I know.”

“Not quite, Sir. I have founded it, on accident, and ever since been leading it. We started out as three soldiers and a journalist and now have several teams.”

“How does one found an entire division on accident?”

This conversation would take a while, so Jim sat down opposite from the General and began,

“I was in Iraq when my team and I were captured. I had been separated from them, assumably because I am woman, and was to be executed. Since that didn’t fit into my plans for that months, I escaped during the transport to the execution. Eventually, I made my way back to my base where I was told that none of my comrades had been as lucky and that they were not to be rescued.”

“Assuming you are just the tiniest bit like your father, I can imagine the hell you gave whoever decided that.”

“You are not wrong, and in the end, I was allowed to attempt to rescue them. However, the commander of the base would not risk further lives. Luckily for me, one of my comrades brother served on this base as well and he was willing to take the risk, together with a friend of mine, a drone pilot, we scouted the prison they were held in and were approached by a young woman, a journalist, who told us that five American soldiers were to be executed two days from them. With her information, we made a plan and managed to free my comrades on their way to the execution.”

“Just the three of you?”

“Two, actually. Since Sebastian was, and still is, a drone pilot, he kept an eye on us from above, but wasn’t physically involved. It was just Stephen and me.”

“Impressive.”

“Perhaps. Not a month later I was approached by a General who told me that someone important was held prisoner, and asked if I could do something about it. I requested my previous team and said I would see what I can do. This time, we were backed up by four of my five comrades, the fifth had returned to the US due to injuries. We were successful, and after a third successful mission, we were offered to permanently become a team. We agreed. Since then, I have been recruiting new personal, as well for organisation as for actual missions. By now SR has four additional teams, plus one technical support team, overseen by Colonel Anderson, my CO during the first rescue.”

“And you still lead a team?”

“More or less, yes. I am in charge of the first SR team, consisting of three of my former team members, and Stephen. Our journalist contact and the drone pilot are also part of the team, but work from HQ, which, I have to admit, is a container.”

“That is all very impressive, Major, but why are you telling me this?”

“With your permission, General, I would like to put in a request for transfer to the SGC. I think I would be of more use here.”

“As what exactly?”

“Well Sir, I would like to build a team, Sir, with the sole purpose of search and rescue. For the beginning, I think it would be reasonable, if I just reinforce a team like SG9, when it is needed, and spent the rest of the time as a scientist in the lab.”

Before he could find an answer, there was a knock on the door and a man entered, greeting the General, then turning to Jim.

“Alex O’Neill, that is unexpected.”

“Paul? I knew you were keeping secrets form me.”

“You know each other?”

“Yes General. Major Davis and I met on a mission.”

“Which means, she rescued me when I had been taken hostage.”

“So you know about this Division she founded?”

“Yes Sir, ever since she rescued me, I have been a strong supporter of her and her program. Why?”

“Well, she has just proposed that we introduce this program here. With her in charge.”

“You want to leave SRD? Who will lead it then?”

“Stephen surely won’t mind taking over my team and Anderson is capable of handling the rest on his own. As I have told General Hammond, the SRD is up and running on its own, the SGC however could need me. I’ll be of more use here.”

“What’s with your plans?”

“You mean the new name and the opening of a proper HQ? Still on my agenda.”

Davis nodded, though he regretted to see her leave her program he agreed that she would be of great use here.

“Sir, for what it’s worth, I believe Major O’Neill will be a great addition to this program and she would fit right in.”

“I can’t make promises, but as a scientist, you are very likely to stay, about the rest, we will see.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

With that she was dismissed and Davis and Hammond attended to the business Davis had come for.

After she had finished her letter of request and had given it an airman to have it send away, Alex went to Sam’s lab, where she found Daniel too.

“Hey, I was just at Hammond’s office.”

“And? Can you stay longer?”

“Well… you see, I might just get a transfer.”

“A transfer? To the SGC?”

“No, to the moon. Obviously to the SGC.”

“As a soldier or a scientist?”

“I was hoping both, but we will see. Anyone knows how Jonathan is doing?”

She hadn’t really been in the mood to visit him again, but was slightly worried about him. Plus, some time she would have to tell him she requested to be transferred here. She seriously wondered what he would say to that. Then again, the only way to find out was to tell him. But not now.

“He’s fine, Janet said he could go home today. Why do you call him Jonathan anyway?”

“That’s his name. Jack is just a short form as Jim is for me.”

“Yeah, but everyone calls him Jack.”

“Not quite.”

She didn’t elaborate it further, but thought about her Granddad, he used to call his son Johnny or John, never Jack. For the past few years, however, he hadn’t talked about his son at all. Not since the night he had told her that her half-brother, Charlie, had died.

Charlie. Jamie had met her brother only a few times, when she was five, her father had married, and no year later, Charlie was born. The next few years, she had seen Charlie every Christmas, until she had to leave. After that, their Grandparents had sometimes invited Charlie to stay with them for a few days. Johnathan never knew, but during those days, Jamie got to spent time with her brother. Until he died when he was only ten years old, shot himself with Johnathan’s gun. That night was the last time Jim heard her grandparents mention their son. She actually had expected that they soon would tell her that her father had killed himself. Because that was what the conversation was about. Jamie remembered that night rather clearly. After Gramps had told her, she had sat on the swing for hours, just starring into the dark. Her Grandma had watched her from the terrace, until Gramps joined her and they had a quiet conversation. One sentence she never forgot,

_“How is Johnny ever going to recover from it… oh Lizzy, I don’t think we’ll ever see our boy again.”_

As a matter of fact, they hadn’t. But he was alive, and as it seemed, had found a new meaning in his live.

“Jim, are you okay?”

Sam had put a hand on her, unburned, shoulder, looking at her with worry.

“Yeah, I’m fine. What were you saying, Daniel?”

“Oh, I was just wondering if you had already read the books I gave you.”

“Yeah, sure. That’s why I gave them back. Though I do believe that my pronunciation needs some improvement.”

“You aren’t seriously trying to tell me that you learned a language in less than three days?”

“Oh, I learned Spanish in less then two when I was five. And really, Goa’uld isn’t that complicated. I mean, those different dialects I still have to work on, but give me a week or two and I’ll be fluent in all of them.”

“You are a show-off, Alex.”

Johnathan had showed up in the doorway without anyone noticing.

“Well, perhaps, but I have a lot to show off, so that’s okay.”

That made everyone laugh, including herself.

“But I’m glad to see you up, Sir.”

“Thanks, Major. Heard you were injured yourself.”

“Nothing big. Took a blast from a staff weapon on the shoulder and a bullet in the stomach”

“Latter one for me. Thanks a lot for that, by the way.”

“No big deal, I’ll be fine in no time.”

“Good. Listen, Major… can we talk for a second?”

Well, that didn’t sound good. But there was not much she could do about it, so she nodded.

“Yes, I should return to my quarters anyway.”

“I’ll walk you there.”

“As you wish, Colonel.”

In silence they left the lab and walked down the corridor to the elevator.

“What did you want to talk to me about, Sir?”

“Can you please stop calling me Sir or Colonel?”

“Fine. Johnathan.”

“Listen, I understand that you don’t exactly like me and don’t really want me around, but … can’t you stay a little? I think Carter would really like that. She hasn’t shut up about you.”

That was far from what Jim had expected. He was actually inviting her to stay?

“You could stay at my place. I’ll stay here for that time.”

“That won’t be necessary, Sir.”

“Okay, I understand. Forget I asked.”

“That won’t be necessary as I have just send away my request to be transferred here permanently. I have some things to attend to before that, but if my request is granted, I will move to Colorado Springs.”

Next to her Johnathan came to a halt, starring at her.

“You have what?”

“Requested to be transferred to the SGC. I intend to continue my work here. This command sure can used a proper rescue unite.”

Johnathan nodded, but didn’t quite seem to comprehend what he just heard.

“Is that a problem?”

“No! Just unexpected.”

He smiled at her and from what Jim could tell, he really was happy about it, which was rather relieving.

“So… how are you doing? I mean, I know that you’re a pilot, but nothing else.”

“What would you like to know?”

“Any boyfriends? Oh, uh, girlfriends, I mean.”

“Currently, neither nor.”

Jack nodded again, somewhat awkwardly, as if he didn’t know what to say. Which Alex could understand quite well. She herself was not the most skilled person when it came to human interaction. She never knew what to say.

“Comes in quite handy, now, I suppose.”

“How so?”

“Well, I will have to move here. That would probably mean the end of any romantic relationship, wouldn’t it?”

“Right, yeah. Where do you live anyway?”

“Washington DC. I’ve got a little house there.”

“DC? Oh, I hate Washington. I can navigate my way through the galaxy, but I always get lost in Washington.”

Jim made the mistake of imagining her father standing in front of the White House, holding a map upside-down and frowning and cussing about getting lost again, which made her laugh.

“What?”

“Nothing. I can’t really imagine living here. Too sandy and dry and warm for my taste.”

“Minnesota.”

Raising an eyebrow as question she turned towards him.

“You’d like it there. Personally, I think everyone should like Minnesota. It’s the most beautiful place I know.”

“I’ll keep that in mind when planning my next vacation.”

“I have a cabin there, if you’re interested. You can go fishing.”

The way he said that suggested he liked fishing a lot, though the following statement let her wonder if he really did.

“But there are no fishes in the pond.”

As weird as she found that, Jim decided not to question that.

“This cabin doesn’t happen to be in the woods, somewhere off in the mountains?”

“It is.”

“Sold.”

“Speaking of which, you need a house here.”

“I’m contempt with an apartment. But yes, and I’ll need boxes. A lot of boxes.”

“Let me guess. Books.”

“Enough to fill a small library.”

By now they had reached her quarter, standing in the door.

“You’ll be assigned permanent quarters, too.”

Yeah, she had figured.

“Assuming I’ll get the transfer.”

“They’d be dumb if not.”

With that Johnathan left her alone and Jim lay down to rest.


	5. Chapter 5

Two days later Alexandra got the confirmation that her request had been approved and she returned to Washington to prepare everything. The day before she was to move to Colorado, she had assembled all her colleagues from Search and Rescue in front of their new Headquarters. One of her last acts as Leader of the SR Division of the US Air Force was to institute it and promote the changes the SRD had undergone.

Now she stood on a small stage, looking at the chattering crowed. Next to her was Major Davis as the administrative send by the Pentagon.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, my friends and colleagues. Welcome and thank you for coming. Today is a very special day for me, as I will, by the end of it, no longer be the leader of the SRD. Because of this, I had to move ahead with some plans of mine, so I have a lot to announce. First of all, I present to you, the new Headquarters of the US Air Force Search and Rescue Division. About damn time, as I may add.”

A wave of cheers followed, but quickly ebbed off. 

“United States Air Force Search and Rescue Division is quite a mouthful the abbreviation used so far didn’t help much, which is why, from now on it is no longer called US Air Force Search and Rescue Division but the Icarus Division.”

As she said that, Davis pulled away a canvas that had so far covered the new logo, which showed a young man with wings, falling out of the sky.

Several of their friends laughed at that. Often before, they had discussed possible new names for the Division, but never found one that had met the approval form above. It had honestly surprised Alex that this one had.

“Together with the new name come a few other changes. From today on, Icarus will operate solely from HQ out. There will be no longer any teams stationed in war zones. Should the need arise, they will be dispatched from here. To make sure this is possible, there will be at any time, one team present at HQ to go wherever they are needed, and another team will be on call. There will also be a new permanent team of IT-technicians, responsible for overseeing every mission and helping from here with information and anything else possible, this, however, will not mean that the technicians in the team won’t be needed anymore, they will continue their work as before.”

As she had expected, this was met with confusion, but her comrades would be introduced more closely with everything later.

“Now, to the part I have been looking forward to most. Thanks to the support of General Lucas, I can actually do that. I’m sure this won’t come as a surprise. Colonel Jeffery Anderson, please come up here.”

Since they knew what would come now, their colleagues began to cheer loudly as their Colonel made his way towards her.

“Up to now you have been in charge of overseeing the logistical parts of the missions, doing that very well, if I may say so. Back when I was under your direct command, I had the greatest respect for you, and working with you for the past five years has only increased it. You are a rational and wise leader, and a good and loyal friend. Hereby I announce you head of Icarus. Congratulations Colonel, it’s yours now. I know you will make me proud, leading my Division.”

With a bright smile, Anderson shook Alex’s hand,

“Thank you, Major, I will. Your baby is in good hands.”

As if she didn’t knew that. That’s why she had suggested giving him command of it in the first place. She nodded and Anderson left the stage again.

“It is my honour and pleasure, to furthermore announce the promotion of Captain Stephen Williams, to the rank of Major.”

Again, the crowd erupted into cheers and her friend joined her on the stage.

“I present to you Major Stephen Williams, who I assign leader of Icarus 1. You earned it, my friend.”

Alex had assumed it would be harder to hand over both the lead of Icarus and of her team, but knowing what was expecting her and that she was succeeded by two very capable men, it was almost easy.

“That is all I have to say, but before we can engage in celebration, I have been told that Major Davis, our representative from the Pentagon wishes to say something too. So, please, Major, the stage is all yours.”

“Thank you, Major O’Neill. Don’t go to far.”

What an odd request but okay.

“Almost five years ago, when I was stationed in Afghanistan, my helicopter crashed, and I was taken prisoner by the enemy. At that time, there was no rescue division, and barely any hope for me to be found. However, there was a rather unusually group of people, who had twice before proven quite resourceful when it came to rescuing our people. This group was led by no one less then Alexandra O’Neill here. After another successful mission that saved my and several other lives, O’Neill was given command of what is now Icarus. Since then she has brought this Division far. What used to be one team are now ten. And even though I am deeply sorry to see Major O’Neill leave I have great confidence that this program will live on for a long time. But there is one last parting gift I would like to give her.”

He turned to her with a smile warm enough to melt glaciers.

“I have been given authorisation by the Secretary of Defence himself, to promote Major Alexandra O’Neill to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. May that rank serve her well on her new assignment.”

Oh, hell it would. With the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, Alex was actually in the position to lead an SG team. As Davis put on the new rank insignias, Alex’s gaze fell on a small group of people in the back of the crowed. Both SG1 as well as Colonel Johnson had come to Washington for her and now where cheering for her.

“Thank you Major.”

She shook his hand, and then the formal part was over. They entered the building, and everyone looked around. In the community area there was buffet, but before Alex got herself something to eat, she went over to her father.

“What are you doing here, Sir? I thought you didn’t like Washington.”

Johnathan smiled and shrugged his shoulder,

“I don’t. But Carter and Daniel wanted to come, so I thought I’d join them.”

“Thank you, Sir, all of you. I appreciate it.”

After quickly greeting her friends, Jack spoke up again.

“I do have one question: Why Icarus?”

“Well, Sir, Icarus was a boy from Greek mythology. His father, Daedalus build them wings with which they could fly. But as they did Icarus flew to high and as a result crashed into the sea.”

“Okay, so why name your division after it?”

Alex exchanged a quick look with Daniel, then sighed,

“Would you please? I have to shake some Generals’ hand. I’ll be back soon. Oh, and there is cake.”

“Cake is good.”

With a smile she rolled her eyes and walked away, Sam had already told her that one could persuade Johnathan to go almost everywhere simply by promising him there would be cake. Alex hadn’t come far when she was approached by Colonel Anderson.

“You said a few very nice things, O’Neill.”

“Oh, I meant every word of it, Colonel, you know that.”

“I know, and I also know that, if you wouldn’t have trust and confidence in my abilities to lead this division and improve it, I would never have been put in charge. So, what I’m saying is, thank you, I am honoured.”

“Hard to believe this all began with us being captured, is it?”

A group of four men joined them, one of them was Stephen, the other two were her original comrades.

“Well, let’s be honest, it began with her being too stubborn to get executed.”

“Sorry, being killed wasn’t in my calendar that day. Neither was attending your funerals. And since I couldn’t trust you to save your own lazy asses, I had to step in.”

“Funny, O’Neill, very funny.”

“I told you the day she came for us, we’ll never hear the end of it.”

“You don’t deserve to hear the end of it, Williams. Not the way you always called her princess.”

That was true, for the first few months, Patrick, Stephen’s little brother, had always called Alex princess, because she was a woman. After she had saved them, he occasionally called her their Princess in a shiny armour.

“But honest, I’ll miss you, Alex. We all will.”

“Yes. I didn’t believe it when Anderson told us you would leave. Who am I supposed to make fun of now?”

“I’ll miss you too, idiot.”

“It’s a hard hit losing you, both as a friend and colleague and as a leader.”

Being touched by those sentiments, Alex hugged them all, one after another.

In the later afternoon, after the celebration came to an end, the group form the SGC were among the last non-Icarus to remain. Which Alex only noticed as Stephen pointed it out to her.

“Hey Alex, do you know these people? I mean, I can see they’re soldiers, well some of them, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen them before.”

“Oh, yeah, they’re my new colleagues. Though I don’t know why they’re still here.”

“That’s who you trade us for? An old man, a buff dude, a tiny woman and two scrawny nerds?”

Had Stephen just called Johnson a scrawny nerd? Never would that have crossed her mind. Daniel, she could somewhat understand, though he looked quite well in his suite, he was thin compared to Teal’c, but now that she was all of them standing together, she realised that Johnson was rather small and very thin.

“Don’t underestimate them, they’re good. And just so that you know, every single one of them could kill you. Especially the scrawny little guy.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope, I’ve seen him fight. He’s good. Better than half the people here. As for the other four, they’re the best my new command has to offer.”

“Wow. Really?”

“Then they must be damn good. After all, if Alex asked to join this command, they must be the best the Air Force has to offer.”

“Believe me, they are. The best and brightest this county has to offer, in fact. That scrawny nerd has at least two doctorates and has worked for the military for years. The old guy is a highly decorated Colonel, the tiny woman has quite an impressive collection of medals for a major and has a doctorate too.”

“Okay. I can see why you want to work with them. You’re going to fit right in, aren’t you? They’re your league.”

“I still don’t like you leaving, but I feel better knowing you leave us for people like them. But Alex, remember, you are and always will be our Princess in the shining armour.”

“I’ll miss you. All of you idiots.”

Her heart heavy, she hugged them goodbye and joined the group of her new colleagues.

“Still here?”

“Yeah, we thought, maybe we can help you pack the rest of your things?”

“I really could use a helping hand or two.”

“Well then.”

It was late evening when they had finally packed up everything and put most of it in a truck.

“So, when are you going to fly to Colorado?”

“Not at all. I’ll drive there. Need to get my car to Colorado Springs, too.”

“Drive all the way to Colorado? Alone?”

“Unless one of you volunteers to join me, yes, alone.”

“Actually, I wouldn’t mind.”

Five astonished heads turned to Daniel, who leaned against the fireplace.

“No kidding?”

“No. I think it could be fun.”

“Well, if you really want to, I would like that.”

“Great, then, it’s settled.”


	6. Chapter 6

The next morning around seven, the others dropped Daniel off at Alex’s place, before they went to airport, wishing them fun.

Daniel then stood awkwardly in the empty living room, while Alex packed up the things she had needed during the night and put them in the car, while she was outside, the doorbell rang and Daniel opened.

“Hi, oh, you’re not All.”

“No, I’m Daniel. Jackson.”

“I’m Patrick Williams. I’m a colleague of Alex, or was.”

“Oh, yes, yeah, I think I saw you yesterday.”

“Yes. And you are?”

“Oh, I, uh… I’m an archaeologist.”

“Archaeologist?”

“Williams, stop harassing Daniel.”

Alex showed up behind Stephen, rolling her eyes. As nice as Patrick was, he had no use for archaeology, he respected her, but not her doctorate in archaeology.

“Sorry Princess.”

“Came to say goodbye?”

“Nah, I know you packed up your stuff already, so I thought I bring you some coffee”

The thermos flask he held, Alex recognized as her own. Which made her smile, she had borrowed it to him when he had moved into his new house almost two years back

“Nice of you to return it before I move.”

“What? Oh yeah, well. Have no use for it anymore. Might as well have it back. Oh, and Lilly baked for you. Your favourite apple thingies.”

Lilly was Patrick’s wife and a pastry chef, so she was pretty good at baking. Taking the bag Patrick held and peeking inside, Alex saw that Lilly had in fact put together a collection of all her favourite pastries and a few sandwiches from the bakery she owned.

“Tell her she is the best.”

“She heard about the changes you did to the program, let’s just say she’s more than excited that I’ll get to be home most of the time.”

“I’m glad to hear that. Perhaps Stephen will now finally get the niece he’s been talking about for the last five years.”

“He’s just going to spoil them rotted.”

“Hell yes, he is.”

Daniel still stood in front of them, in the open door, pretending to be interested in the door frame.

“Who’s that nerd anyway?”

“This nerd is my friend, and my colleague to be.”

“Ah. Looks very military.”

“It’s not like we haven’t worked with civilians before. One of them, I might remind you, saved your ass.”

Patrick grimaced, but let that topic go.

“I’ll leave now, you want to leave soon, I assume, don’t want to hold you up. Come visit some time.”

“Give me a reason to come. Say, a goddaughter.”

“You get to be the godmother when marry Stephen.”

“You wish.”

“I wish. Goodbye, my Princess in the shining armour.”

With a wary smile he gave her a soft kiss on the cheek, then left, and Alex returned inside. Daniel just stared at her confused.

“What just happened?”

“Oh, Patrick is a little weird, but he’s okay.”

“But he wants you to marry Stephen? Who’s Stephen? And why does he call you his Princess in the shining armour?”

“Stephen is his older brother. And I don’t know why he thinks we’d make a great couple. And he used to call me princess when I first joined Colonel Anderson’s team. When I came to rescue them, he joked that finally their knight in a shining armour had come, to which Anderson replied with more like Princess in a shining armour, after all that’s what he called me all the time. The name stuck.”

“Ah. Okay.”

“Yeah, I know. Weird. But once you spent a few years with someone you stop noticing how weird exactly.”

“Tell me about it. I’ve been working with Jack O’Neill.”

“That weird?”

“I thought you knew him?”

While they talked, they packed their bags in the car and got in themselves. The drivers, who’d get the truck to Colorado would come at ten, but Jim had no intention of waiting that long. They knew the address and that was all that mattered.

As Jim left the driveway in front of her house, she felt sad. For over three years this house had been her home. This city for even longer.

“Jasmine?”

“Huh?”

“You okay?”

Daniel looked rather worried, which was quite cute.

“Yes. I’m okay. I just hadn’t imagined I’d move away from here.”

She took a deep breath before smiling at him.

“And to your question, yes, I know Johnathan. But not very well. I met him when I was a child. During the rescue was the first time I’ve seen him in the last twelve years.”

“So, you don’t really know his character.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, he’s not bad. At first, he was, didn’t really like scientists. But we actually grew friends. He’s loyal, kind, has a very dry humour. When Cater got separated from us, he did it deliberately. He saw her going down, we were outnumbered, so he told us to run in the opposite direction. Hoping to draw them away form her, to protect her.”

“Yeah, Sam had suspected that. She also told me that Johnathan is quite intelligent, even though he tries to hide it. But I suspect, he just says something stupid that gives her a brilliant idea.”

Daniel laughed, but nodded in agreement, only to realise that she probably didn’t see that.

“Not unlikely.”

“But I must say, I was really surprised to see all of you yesterday. I knew Sam wanted to come and she said she would ask you to come too, but the rest.”

“Jack heard us talk about it and said it sounded like fun, so he came. Teal’c came because he had nothing better to do and he wanted to show you his gratitude for saving us. Why Johnson come, no idea. I think he likes you.”

“What? He barely ever talked to me after the mission. Once asked me if I was okay and when I would leave again. Even Teal’c talked to me more.”

“Hu, well, maybe I’m wrong.”

“Whatever, tell me about your missions, will you?”

He did and they spent the next three days swapping stories.

When they finally arrived in Colorado Springs around noon the third day, Jasmine was more convinced than ever that she was desperately needed at the SGC. She would begin next Monday. The four days until then she would spent getting to know the city and moving into her apartment. It was smaller than her house, but since parts of her stuff would be in her personal quarters in the SGC and had been given an office there too, it was enough. The truck with her belongings arrived the next morning and soon her apartment had furniture and was full with boxes. She had already sorted them when packing, so she didn’t have to unpack them.


	7. Chapter 7

On Monday she was officially welcomed by General Hammond while SG1 already carried her stuff to its destination. So when she entered her lab, she found Johnathan sitting on the empty desk surrounded by boxes full of books.

“Daniel had to go. He’s scheduled to leave at 1400 with SG6, so I thought, I’ll help you unpack. And you probably have enough of him after three days, don’t you?”

“He’s actually rather pleasant company. We have, after all, similar interests.”

“Right, Uhm, I take it, you haven’t told them…”

“About how we know each other? No. And I have no intention to do so. General Hammond knows, and maybe Doctor Fraiser, that’s enough.”

Johnathan sighed, but nodded, “Yeah. Okay. If that’s what you want.”

“Thank you, I appreciate that.”

“I’m just glad you’re okay. And that I finally know where you are. I still remember how I came back… Sara and Charlie were at the airport. I remember asking them where you were. But I guess you don’t know that.”

“What?”

“I had invited you to stay with us for some time. Your mom said maybe, and Sara took care of the rest. When I came home, she told me that your mom hadn’t agreed and that she didn’t want you to see me anymore because it was a bad influence. Turned out, she just wanted to hide the fact that you had run away. Or that she had thrown you out. I drove all the way to your house that night… When she told me you were gone… I spent most of my time searching for you. And then the next oversee mission approached and I … I just didn’t want to leave. So I left and took a boring job here at the academy.”

“Wait, you left active duty because of me?”

That really surprised Alex, she knew that at some point or another he had left active military service to work in Colorado Springs at the academy. But she had figured it was because of Charlie, either because he hadn’t had as much time for him as he wanted or after he shot himself, but never it occurred to her that he left because of her.

“Should have done that a long time ago, when you were still a kid. And then you were gone and I… I kept thinking, ‘What if I’d been there?’, ‘What if I hadn’t been at the other end of the world?’ ‘If I had been somewhere you could reach me, would you have come?’ and I blamed myself for not being there for you. For not being a father to you. I should have been there for you from the beginning.”

When she was a kid, she had thought so too, she had been angry at him for being away, for not being a dad. But now she began to understand and as she looked at her father, she forgave him for not being who she had needed him to be.

“You were young. You were in the military. You had just returned from your first tour when you found out that I existed. Sure, you could have handled it better, and you could have spent more time with me… But it’s the past. It’s long gone. And for the last twelve years I had a good live. And now, we’re both here. And who knows, maybe we can become something like friends.”

Johnathan didn’t look like he wanted her to be his friend, he wanted his daughter, but he nodded. If that was all he could get, he would take it. For now, however, he helped Alex unpack all her books. And she had lots of them. 

And from then on, Alex was part of the SGC. The first month or so, she spent only working in her lab. Sometimes working on artefacts, sometimes helping out Sam. So far, she hadn’t gotten permission to go off-world again. But that was about to change. Alex now sat in the briefing room with General Hammond with SG9, the team she was supposed to lead when during Search and Rescue.

“Here’s the situation. SG4 is overdue, last contact made at 1700 yesterday. They were due at 0800 this morning. The MALP shows no sign of a battle, but also no sign of them.”

“What about UAV?”

“I suppose it doesn’t get a clear few because of the trees, right? That’s why we’re here. The terrain is not accessible by MALP and the UAV is practically useless. So, we have to swap the area on foot. Am I right, General?”

“You are, Colonel. Last thing we heard was that they found signs of civilisation and something like a road. Dr Jackson suggested they take a look.”

Apparently, Daniel liked to join other teams when SG1 wasn’t scheduled to leave, since Sam had a week off, he had used the opportunity to go explore.

“We assume they have made contact with hostiles. They might be prisoners, or worse.”

“Or, of course, they just got lost.”

Hammond looked at Alex a little puzzled, which she shrugged off.

“Just trying to stay positive here, Sir. Anyways, let’s not make assumptions. For all we know, they might enjoy pleasant company right now.”

“I hope so, but in case they are not, Colonel O’Neill, the other O’Neill, has requested to join you.”

“no objections.”

Hammond nodded and Johnathon and Teal’c, who were apparently waiting outside, were brought in.

“So, Sir, how’re we going to handle this?”

“Ask Colonel O’Neill, she’s in charge.”

Surprised, Teal’c raised an eyebrow with was equal to an astonished cry.

“Yes, I am. And I need you to follow my orders without argument. Do you understand that Colonel? No matter how odd the order, I need you all to trust me.”

Alex first looked at Johnathan, then at SG9.

“That’s why I won’t order any of you to come with me. Unless you trust me and are willing to follow me blindly, stay behind.”

Johnson grinned at his team and they nodded,

“We followed you blindly the day we met, remember? You lead, we’ll follow.”

“How about you?”

“I’m in.”

Teal’c nodded, but he was a man of very few words, so he didn’t say anything.

“Good. We leave in half an hour. Be ready.”

Hammond nodded at the soldiers and they left to get dressed.

Alex stayed a moment longer, starring at the case file, thinking about the possibilities.

“Is there a problem, Colonel?”

“Huh? What? Oh, no. I was just in thoughts, General.”

“So, you don’t have a problem with Colonel O’Neill joining you? Seeing how he is your father and the two of you seem to have some unresolved issues.”

“Actually, Sir, I’m rather glad that Johnathon joined us. He’s the best, isn’t he? And he knows what he’s doing. I don’t. Not when it comes to alien planets”

“Very well.”

With that, he left and Alex went to get ready.

  
Half an hour later, the group went through the Stargate, which stood in the middle of a forest clearing on a stone plateau. The forest was wild and dark and full of hills and stones.

“So, where do we begin looking?”

“First of all, we try to contact them.”

So, Alex did, but as she had there was no response.

“Now, we follow their path. Teal’c, I heard you were good at tracking?”

“Indeed.”

“Then you’ll be upfront with me, O’Hara and Black, you’ll stay at the Gate. After all, you don’t rob a bank without a getaway car.”

“Are you intending to rob a bank?”

“Oh, that kind of things I decide rather spontaneously.”

“Good to know.”

“Why, do you usually plan on robbing banks?”

“I never even considered it at all, how about you Johnson?”

“Can’t say that I have, O’Neill.”

“Really? How very peculiar. Then I suppose you have never considered hijacking a police car either?”

“No. Why have you?”

Alex laughed, “Oh, I was bored, obviously. And the car just stood there, all alone.”

“Yes, a good reason to hijack it.”

“Thought so too. But didn’t do it in the end.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t know how to drive at that time, of course.”

“Of course.”

It didn’t take Teal’c long until he found the trace of a group of people, which they followed. It lead deep into the woods, confirming Alex theory that SG4 was just lost. Also, they hadn’t found any evidence for a society so far.

After about an hour that changes as the ruins of a temple appeared in front of them. Unfortunately, the temple was build on a field of gras and there were no more tracks to be found.

“You think they’re trapped inside?”

“Or they left already and are lost. Either way, they should be close enough to be in communication range.”

Johnathan tried to hail them and promptly got an answer from May, the leader of SG4.

‘O’Neill, that you?’

“Jap. Where are you?”

‘We’ve been wondering that ourselves. Somewhere in the woods.’

“This is O’Neill, you’ve been at the temple, can you return there?”

‘We’ve been trying. But Craig is injured, a falling branch hit her.’

“Continue trying, Johnson will stay at the temple in case you find it, we’ll come looking for you.”

‘Thanks a lot, Colonel.’

Alex turned to Johnson, “You and Martinez will stay here, I’ll take Teal’c and Johnathan and see if we can find SG4. Look around a little, see if you can find something, but do not lose sight of the temple! I don’t want to have to look for you too.”

“Yes Ma’am.”

She nodded towards Johnathan and he and Teal’c followed her, while the other two stayed back.

After a moment of consideration, Alex decided that it was most likely for SG4 to be somewhere behind the temple. As soon as she saw how dark the forest was there, she knew for sure. So far the forest had been rather easy to navigate in, here however, she could very well imagine how SG4 got lost.

“Look for a path. They wouldn’t have risked going in there if they hadn’t seen a path.”

“Over there, O’Neill.”

Both O’Neills followed Teal’c and really, there was a path, narrow and dark, but at least something.

“You think they really went in there?”

“It’s the only trace we have. If they didn’t went in here, there’s no way to know where they are.”

“The dark, creepy forest it is.”

Rolling her eyes, Alex stepped forward.

“Good thing I’ve never been afraid of the dark.”

From the corner of her eye she could see Johnathan turning towards Teal’c, “That’s true, she just refused to be afraid.”

Which Teal’c answered with a raised eyebrow. No surprise there. But it made Alex smile, and it was nice to know that Johnathan remembered that.

She certainly did remember how he had taken her camping once when she was four, and he had told her stories about Big Foot and fairy tales. She had loved them. And at some point, he had asked her if she was afraid and if he should stop. _“I’m not scared, Daddy.”_ She had answered, and he had asked why _. “Because I don’t want to, of course.”_ Like it was the most obvious thing in the world. She could still hear him laugh. And, oh, he had laughed, and hugged her and he had told her that she was probably the bravest person he had ever met.

Shaking her head, Alex tried to chase away the memory. It was one of the few good childhood memories she had, and one of the even fewer positive ones about her father. But right know she had to concentrated. The sun would soon set on this planet and then it could get pretty could out here. And that wasn’t her only worry.

For about half an hour they walked in silence, searching for any trace of their colleagues, until finally, they found them, stumbling through the brushwood.

“O’Neill!”

May and Daniel were supporting Craig, who looked like she was barely holding on to consciousness anymore, while the other two soldiers walked one up front and one behind them.

“Thank heavens, you found us.”

“Don’t thank us yet, it’s getting darker by the minute and I’d like to be back before it’s completely dark.”

“I thought you weren’t scared of the dark.”

“It’s not the darkness I worry about. Temperature is dropping and it’s going to be freezing soon. Also, I’m pretty sure there are predators out here and we’ve seen several traces, less than a day old but not fresh enough to be made during daylight.”

“So, nocturnal predators and freezing cold?”

“Yes. We better get going.”


	8. Chapter 8

But when they reached the temple, the sun had set completely, and the temperature was already down about ten degrees.

“Colonels, finally! We thought you’d gotten lost too. Can we please go now? It’s cold.”

“We’re not going to find our way back in this darkness. We’d go lost and be easy pray.”

“What are you saying, Alex?”

The entire group was looking at her, suspecting what she was saying, but not liking it much. Neither did she. But she liked it a hell lot better than being eaten.

“We’re gonna spent the night here. In the temple. We’ll make a fire to keep warm, the walls and doors should keep predators out.”

“What about O’Hara and Black?”

“They’ll go home. Any objections?”

Looking at the faces around her she could see that no one was thrilled about spending the night in a temple, especially since Craig needed medical attention. Good thing she was a doctor.

“Good, Teal’c, Johnathan, Willows, collect firewood. Daniel, you’ve seen the temple, where are we going to be the safest?”

“There’s large room in the basement, used to be the kitchen, I think, it has a fireplace with chimney and the door is still solid.”

“Good, get the rest settled inside, I’ll come as soon as I talked to O’Hara. Willows, you know where the kitchen is?”

“Yes ma’am. Good, then you three go, but stay out of the woods.”

They nodded and left for the woods, and so did the rest, but inside the castle. Only May remained.

“I’m not leaving you alone out here. We still need you to get us home.”

Alex didn’t protest and instead called O’Hara.

‘Hey boss. When are you coming back?”

“Not tonight. We’re staying at the temple. It’s not safe out here at night.”

‘What are we supposed to do?’

“Go home. We’ll join you tomorrow. As soon as the sun rises, we get going. But I need you to brief General Hammond that we’re safe and we’ll be back later than planned.”

‘Okay, boss, if you say so. Anything else to tell him?’

“Just that we found May’s team, Craig’s injured, but I’ll take care of that. Just tell him we’ll be home before lunch.”

‘Will do. O’Hara out.’

Alex didn’t really like to send them away. She’d feel a lot better if her team would be right here, where she would know they were fine. Technically, she knew that they were saver at Stargate Command than they were out here, but that didn’t change it. She simply preferred to keep her team together, or at least in radio contact.

With a quiet sigh, she turned to the temple. Time to see their camp for tonight. For a moment she was tempted to wait for the others, but she knew Johnathan could handle himself. He didn’t need her, Craig did.

The two colonels hurried down to the kitchen, where the rest of the team had already made camp. It was cold down here, but Daniel had been right, the door was solid and the room large enough for all of them.

Craig was laying on a sleeping bag, with Daniel kneeling beside her.

“How is she?”

“Unconscious.”

Alex kneeled down next to him and examined Craig. She had a deep cut on the forehead and a concussion. The wound Alex could do something about, the concussion not so much.

“that’s all I can do for now. She needs rest. And so do we all. Once O’Neill brings the firewood, we’ll have dinner and then go to sleep. I want to leave at the first crack of dawn tomorrow. No one argued, they all were tired.

The next day, just before noon, the group stepped through the Stargate, where they were greeted by Hammond and Doctor Fraiser, who took Craig with her.

“I see you found them, Colonel. Well done.”

“Thanks, Sir.”

“And now, all of you, go take a shower, debrief in an hour.”

Gladly. Together with Martinez and May, Alex went to the women’s locker room.

“What do you recon there’ll be for lunch.”

“D’you ever think of something else, Lizzy?”

Martinez rolled her eyes, but laughed.

“I do, in fact.”

“Oh, do you? About what?”

“You, from time to time.”

“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.”

With that, May went into a shower, leaving Martinez behind smiling.

“Are you two flirting with each other?”

“She is my wife, of course I flirt with her.”

Wife? Now that was new to her.

“I didn’t know that.”

“Only few people do. that’s why I joined Johnson’s team. Regulations…”

Alex just shrugged, she’d been in the Air Force long enough to know how they thought about relationships between two soldiers. And she knew people well enough to know how they thought about relationships between two women. But really, she didn’t care, why would she? After all, it was none of her business what those two did off the base.


	9. Chapter 9

Later in the afternoon, after debriefing and lunch, Alex sat in her lab, writing a report, when Daniel walked in.

“Hey Jasmine.”

“Hey Daniel, found anything interesting in the temple?”

“Yeah, actually, we did. But I have no idea what it is, and Hammond send me home because SG-1 is scheduled to leave tomorrow, and he wants me to take a break… Anyway, I thought, maybe you could take a look at it? I’ve got the pictures of the writings of the shrine we found it in, too.”

“Put it in the shelf and pin a note to it. I’ll tend to it as soon as possible. And don’t worry, I’ll let you know as soon as I find something.”

“Could you perhaps squeeze it in today? The writings said something about the ancients and…”

“Oh, why not. I can’t promise to do more than take a quick look, but sure.”

“Thanks, you’re the best. I’ll see if I find more cool stuff to bring you.”

“So long as you don’t get lost and have me come rescue you again.”

Daniel laughed, knowing that she wasn’t seriously complaining.

“I’ll do my best. See you later.”

He put the device on the shelf and left. Alex returned her attention to the report. After she had finished that she went to the infirmary. Mission protocol demanded that every member needed to have a post mission check-up within twelve hours. She was used to that protocol, Icarus had the same. Usually, Alex would go right after their return or after the debriefing, but they had come back hungry and slightly dirty. So she first showered. By the time she didn’t smell like the middle ages anymore it had been time for the debriefing. After that, they all had had lunch together. And since Alex wanted to hand in the report before the end of the day, she had attended to that first. So, it was already around dinner time when she went to see Doc Fraiser.

“Colonel O’Neill, I had begun wondering if you were avoiding me after last time.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Doc. Just got sidetracked.”

Fraiser laughed and gestured her to sit down.

“How’s Craig?”

“She’s fine. I put a new bandage on the wound and send her home. Those were some neat stitches you did there.”

Alex just shrugged her shoulders. She’d just done her job, being a trained surgeon did come in handy at times, but that didn’t mean she hated her time at medical school any less.

“I musst admit, I never liked doing stitches at head wounds.”

“Me too, but I had no glue at hand.”

“You really are a medical doctor, aren’t you?”

“Had it been for my mom, I would be a neurosurgeon today.”

Fraiser looked at her for a few moments before continuing with the test. It took about ten more minutes before the doc let her go with the reassurance that she was in peak health. Nothing else had she expected, but protocol was protocol. She wouldn’t argue with that. Not if she didn’t need to.

When she went back to her lab, the floors were already empty, most scientists had gone home for the night and every soldier that wasn’t on guard was in their quarters. She should probably go home too and get a good night’s sleep. With a sigh, Alex grabbed her jacket that was hanging from the pole of the metal shelf. Perhaps she could grab dinner on her way home. There was this pizza place a block away from her apartment. Best pizza she ever ate. Then her gaze fell on the device Daniel had put there earlier and she hesitated. She had completely forgotten about that. Damn. On one hand, Daniel would never know if she looked at it tomorrow rather than now, on the other hand had she promised to do it today and she liked to keep her promises. Also, Daniel would be happy if she could tell him anything new tomorrow before he left.

Sighing again, she grabbed it off the shelf and put it on her desk. Before she took a look at the pictures, she examined the device itself. Most scientist did it the other way round, but she preferred to form an impartial opinion. In her experience, the simplest explanation sometimes was the best. And having several vague ideas about something and sorting through them with information was certainly easier than having information and then being too narrowed down to form any ideas whatsoever.

This particular devise was advance. It looked a little like a Gameboy, just with more keys. About the same size, too. Who knew, perhaps it was a game of some sorts. She had wondered before what the ancients had to for amusement. Then again, it wouldn’t surprise her if they had considered it amusing to just go and rule a primal planet for some time.

After her initial examination of the device, Alex wired it to her computer to measure any energy flow there might be and began translating the inscriptions. She didn’t even notice how much time passed until one of the soldiers knocked at the doorframe, with a smug smile on his face.

“Burning the midnight oil again, Doc?”

Looking up, Alex saw that it was Airman Harris, who often had nightshifts on her level.

“Hey Will. Who’s the kid doing?”

“Fine as always. It’s almost report. You should call it a … night, I guess, and go home.”

A glance at the clock told her he was right. It was after midnight.

“So much for dinner.”

Chuckling she closed the file and plugged the devise out. She then scribbled a quick note for Daniel on a paper.

‘You were right, it’s ancient. The monks of the temple considered it a holy artefact, but for all I can tell, they had no idea what it does.’

“Can you put that on Dr Jacksons desk when you leave? I’m gonna sleep here tonight.”

“Sure thing, Doc. Good night.”

With a smile, Alex walked over to the elevators, but then decided to take the stairs down to the quarters, where she then fell into bed, barely able to take off her uniform.


	10. Chapter 10

She woke with a start. No idea what had woken her, she sat up. Her body felt sore for some reason. Couldn’t be because of the last mission, she had felt just fine before she went to bed. Doc Fraiser had confirmed that. Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, Alex glanced at her alarm clock. She had slept less than two hours. But that couldn’t be the reason that she felt that way, she’d slept less in the past and never woke up that sore. She wanted to shrug it off and go back to sleep when suddenly something moved next to her.

“You okay, Jas?”

Alarmed, she jumped up and out off the bed, grabbing the gun she always had in the drawer. Carefully, she turned on the night light. And saw, to her infinite surprise, Daniel sitting there, sleepy and confused.

“What’s wrong Jassy?”

Unsure about pointing her gun at her friend, Alex lowered it a little, but was still on guard. Something was definitely wrong here.

“What are you doing in my bed?!”

“What do you mean? What am I doing in your bed?”

“What do you think I mean? Why are you in my bed?”

“I went to bed here last night, as I did for the last seven months.”

What? No! What! That was impossible.

“I know I was tired when I went to bed last night, but that I would have noticed. I mean… you went home hours before I even left my lab.”

Daniel shook his head, he now looked more concerned than confused. Cautiously, never letting the gun out of his sight, he got up.

“Jasmine, please put the gun away. I beg you.”

For a moment, she considered to listen, but chose not to. She had no idea what was going on here, but she knew two things:

  1. she did definitely went to bed alone last night.
  2. Daniel would never just go into her bedroom. Never.



So, whoever that man was, he was not Daniel. Not the Daniel she knew, at least.

“Why would I even go to bed with you?”

If she hadn’t known better, Alex would’ve thought he looked insulted.

“I don’t know. Because I’m your boyfriend, maybe?”

Apparently, she really didn’t know better.

“My boyfriend? I don’t….”

Oh no. And idea crossed her mind. It was absurd and honestly, it was impossible. But it couldn’t make less sense than this entire situation.

“So, I take it, you didn’t come to my lab earlier today to give me an alien devise because Hammond send you home and you couldn’t work on it yourself.”

“No. Who’s Hammond?”

“General George Hammond, Commander of this base.”

“General Davis is commander of this base.”

Davis? At least that cleared things up. With a deep and annoyed sigh Alex put the gun back into the drawer, much to Daniel’s relief.

“So, you and me are a couple?”

“Yes. You know, I think you should see Doctor Fraiser.”

“I think, I should see Major Carter.”

“Sam’s not a Major anymore. Do you want to explain to me what’s going on?”

Alex wanted to leave the room without answering but then realised that she had taken off her uniform before going to bed and currently was only wearing underwear. Groaning, she went to the locker and grabbed some cloths.

“At least they’re still green.”

“What are you talking about? Jas, you scare me.”

“Sorry Daniel. I’m not actually quite sure what’s going on. But I have a theory. And I would like to discuss that with Carter.”

“Carter’s not here, she’s home.”

“Then we’ll call her in.”

Daniel, who had by now put on cloths too, followed her down the corridor.

“How about this, I’ll call Sam, if you agree to have Fraiser check you.”

Seeing as hallucination and/or dreaming were still options, Alex agreed. Couldn’t hurt.

Half an hour later Sam and Johnathan came. Alex had spent the time in the infirmary, having Fraiser run every test she could think of. Which were a lot. Daniel sat on the bed opposite to her, leaving her not out of is sight. Not even when Johnathan walked in, demanding an explanation.

“Does anyone care to explain why we’re called in, in the middle of the night?”

“Why’d you call him any… Wow!”

Now she had seen Sam. Who was pregnant. Very pregnant. What the hell? And according to the shiny gold ring on her finger married.

“What?”

“You’re pregnant. I didn’t see that coming.”

“Are you okay, Lex?”

Johnathon looked about as worried as Daniel had earlier.

“Not sure about that. Who’s the father?”

“Pretty sure I am. What’s wrong?”

“You?!”

That was about the weirdest thing so far. Sure, she had always suspected that there were some feelings between Sam and Johnathan, but having a child? She didn’t think Johnathan would ever have a child again. Not after Charlie.

“Whatever. Not important. I think I’m in an alternating universe. Or, from your point of view, I guess, I am from an alternating universe.”

“You don’t happen to have found a mirror and touched it?”

“No.”

Funny how they immediately accepted that. Then again, Alex had read some mission reports, alterative realities were not a new concept.

“That, or I’m hallucinating.”

Questioningly, she turned to Fraiser, who shook her head.

“You’re perfectly healthy. Healthier than you were when I checked you two days ago after you’d been infected by an alien virus. You should still show signs of it. But you don’t. I’m willing to bet that your blood results won’t show antibodies to it.”

Yeah, that sounded like a safe bet.

“Don’t take me wrong, I’m sure you’re just as lovely as my Lexi, but I kinda want my daughter back.”

“I understand that. But I think I should first talk to General… Davis, you said. Not Paul Davis, right?”

“Yes, Paul Davis. You know him?”

“He’s our liaison from the Pentagon. And a friend.”

It took Alex about an hour to explain everything to him. And after that, Sam decided that any research could wait till tomorrow. Alex didn’t argue too much, she was exhausted. She didn’t sleep long, though. Soon after six she got up again. What those two hours couldn’t fix, coffee would, she decided, and went to the cafeteria, where she met Daniel.

“Mind if I join you?”

“No, please sit. I wanted to ask you about your reality anyways.”

“What do you want to know?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“From your reaction earlier tonight I take it, you and … the other Daniel are not together.”

“No, we’re not. I’ve been at the SGC for little over a months. I never even considered the possibility. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I like you… Daniel, but…. I’m more interested in how Sam and my dad happened.”

“There was this mission, where we got stranded on a planet. It took us about a week to get back. They… when we got back, Sam quit her military job and the next day she and Jack were dating.”

“Wow. Maybe I should suggest that to my Sam. Johnathan definitely has a thing for her. And I think she likes him too.”

“I never heard you call him Johnathan.”

“The other me seems to get along with her dad a lot better than I do. Before I transferred to the SGC I hadn’t seen him for over ten years. Not since I was thirteen.”

“That was the age the other you moved in with him.”

“Lucky her. I ran away and moved to his parents.”

Daniel just nodded, trying to make sense of all of that. Alex could understand that, her head felt like it was about to explode.

“And Sam is-”

This time she actually felt it. It was the same feeling that woke her. A cold wind and something pulling her down. But it happened so fast that she didn’t even have the time to process what happened. Only when she hit the floor, she realised what happened.


	11. Chapter 11

Now she lay on her back, starring up at the concrete celling in the cafeteria.

“Are you injured, O’Neill?”

Teal’c pulled her to her feet, raising an eyebrow.

“Where did you come from?”

“-”

She began saying something but didn’t have an answer, so she closed her mouth again.

“Perhaps Doctor Wallace should examine you.”

“No… what I need is a notebook, Sam Carter and … a bag of ice for my head.”

She had probably hit her head on the floor, one way or another, it hurt.

“I believe, two of these you will find in your lab. And the third I will acquire for you.”

“Thanks Teal’c”

He left and due to the lack of good options, Alex went to where her lab was in her own reality. Surprisingly, it was still exactly there. Just that there were two desks in it and Sam was sitting on one.

“Sam! Looks like Teal’c is getting me the ice and not you.”

She had seriously wondered that. Sam just looked at her slightly bewildered.

“What happened to your hair?”

“Nothing… why?”

“Ten minutes ago it was short.”

To underline her statement, Sam gestured towards her own short hair. Alex just shrugged that off and began searching for an empty notebook. She had no idea what was going on, but she definitely was in the alternative, alternative reality.

“What are you doing?”

“Writing something down. Stuff like… I’ll explain it later.”

Sam frowned but let her carry on. The first thing she did was writing down the time when she had woken up in the first reality, then she began describing it. She didn’t get far because Teal’c came in with a man, who handed her an ice pack and then proceeded to shine a light in her eyes.

“Who exactly are you?”

“Doctor Wallace. Why don’t you know that? Are you feeling nauseous?”

“Slightly, but no, I don’t have a concussion. Well, I might, but not the point. I’m from an alternative reality. Before you ask, I have no idea how I got here, I didn’t even have a proper theory about how I got to the other one, the one I just came from. If you’d excuse me for a moment, I’d like to write this down before I explain any more.”

However, before she returned her attention to the notebook, she took the ice out of Teal’c’s hand and held it to the back of her head. Instantly, she felt better. Now she could continue writing everything from the other reality down. Every difference there was, and every similarity.

When she closed the notebook, Sam, Teal’c and Dr Wallace looked at her expectantly.

“So, alternative reality?”

“Yeah, that or hallucinations. But Doc Fraiser kinda ruled that out. Or, of course, I could have a really bizarre dream.”

Yeah, they didn’t seem to find that half as funny as she did, so she shrugged it off and looked around. On her desk was a picture of her, her brother, and Johnathan.

“Where is he?”

“Who?”

“Jack O’Neill.”

“Your father? From what you told us, he works at the pentagon. In the ministry of defence.”

“He didn’t join the Stargate Program? Who did the first mission the Abydos then?”

“Kowalski. And since the program was reinitiated, he is the leader of SG1.”

“He’s alive?”

“For all I know.”

Until now, Alex hadn’t noticed him standing in the door.

“And why wouldn’t I?”

“I don’t remember the details, but something about a snake in your head. You died within the first month of the program. I never even met you. Very peculiar. How about Daniel? Daniel Jackson.”

“He died on Abydos.”

“Died, died, or died, as in he lives happily ever after with his wife Sha’re.”

“No, he died defending them.”

That hit hard. She knew that there were plenty of realities in which everyone could be dead or whatever. And she understood that this wasn’t the last or even her own reality, rationally, she understood that. But still, she had just talked to him, and here he was dead.

“Oh. Sorry to hear that. He’s a good man.”

“I never actually got to meet him. Kowalski always says he was a bit of a nerd.”

“Not just a bit. He’s a huge nerd. But that’s what makes him so special. He’s the heart and conscious of SG1. And who’s the leader of this base?”

“General George Hammond.”

Nodding slightly, she noted that down. It didn’t have any scientific value, but curiosity won.

“Talking about, I’m gonna go, tell him about … this.”

Visibly confused Kowalski turned around and left, but Alex didn’t really cared, and neither did Sam. They both were busy thinking.

“So, you said you don’t have any good ideas about what happened.”

“Daniel brought back a devise from a planet. I don’t know anything about it, only that it’s ancient.”

“Ancient?”

“You don’t know about the ancients?”

That somewhat proved the chaos theory. Whether it was because Jack hadn’t joined the team and therefore never downloaded the ancient database into his brain, or because Daniel wasn’t alive to figure the language out, she didn’t know.

“The ancients were the ones who build the Stargates. They were brilliant and highly evolved. Daniel theorized that they were the first step of evolution on earth. They evolved to another plain of existence and left earth. Many primeval planets worship them as their forefathers or consider technology they left behind as holy artefacts.”

“They build the Stargates?”

“According to a database, they were the where the gods of ancient Rome. That’s why we call them ancients.”

Sam nodded, but didn’t look like she completely understood what Alex told her. She was a physicist and not an archaeologist. History had never been her thing.

“And this device, could you activate it?”

“I didn’t try.”

Grabbing a pencil, Alex began drawing the device in her notebook and wrote down the information she had about it.

“It looks like that. I didn’t try to turn it on, but I did try to get energy readings off it. It gives of a small amount of beta radiation, but no constant energy output. I thought, perhaps I had accidentally activated it when it plugged it out, but that wouldn’t explain how I got here. There was no device like that anywhere on the compound in the other reality. So it can’t have been that. Or, at least, I don’t know how it possibly could.”

This time, Sam seemed to understand more. Quantum mechanics was more her business.

“Theoretically, there could be a connection on a quantum level. So, it could be possible that the device is connected to you, no matter where it is.”

That possibility she hadn’t considered, but it was possible, of course. Especially considering that the device had to somehow work on a quantum level. So, yeah, it could be still connected to her. But what consequences would that bring? She didn’t even want to think of it.

Distractingly, she shook her head, trying to chase weariness away. Jumping into another reality had interrupted her breakfast. She hadn’t even got more than a sip of coffee. And right now, she really needed some. So, she closed her notebook and began to leave. Not yet out of the door, she hesitated. If Sam was right, if the device really was connected with her, then there was a chance she would jump again. And if she did, she didn’t want to leave behind the notebook, otherwise it would have been futile to write anything down in the first place. Being well aware of Sam, Teal’c and Wallace watching her attentively, she turned around and began to search for a bag. In her lab, she always kept a leather shoulder bag with a few things she could need for several situations. Of course, she had never considered jumping through realities.

After some minutes she found one just like her own in the bottom drawer. A peak inside told her that the other her had prepared for some different possibilities. Everything she didn’t believe she could need, Alex sorted out, the rest she kept, put the notebook in and put the bag around her shoulder.

“What’s that for?”

“Well, if there’s a chance I’m gonna go see some more realities, I want to be prepared. Meaning, until I figured out a pattern, I’m keeping this bag on me at all time.”

“Probably reasonable. And where are you going?”

“Getting coffee and some breakfast. Didn’t get much of my last breakfast.”

“Actually, I would prefer if you let me do some tests on you. Check for a concussion.”

By the look on his face, she didn’t have much of a choice, so she agreed and followed Wallace to the infirmary. Teal’c did too, while Sam stayed behind. Alex didn’t have to ask why Teal’c came along, she knew. He didn’t trust her. And why should he? All he knew about her was that she looked like Alexandra O’Neill, but didn’t act like her. Could mean anything. Even if he believed her that she was from a different reality didn’t mean he trusted her. If their roles were reversed, she certainly would be wary.

It took Wallace longer than Alex would have liked to run all the tests he wanted too. And when he was finally done, Hammond wanted to speak with her. Luckily, he chose to have the conversation in the infirmary, waiting for Wallace’s results, rather than in a cell or interrogation room.

“So, you say you’re from an alternative reality?”

“Yes.”

“Is it very different from this one?”

“Slightly. In mine, my father, Jack O’Neill, is leader of SG1, and Kowalski is dead. Daniel Jackson, on the other hand is alive. And Doctor Wallace here… I have no idea where he is in my reality, but not in the SGC.”

Hammond nodded, trying to process that.

“And who is my head physician? Or am I not General either?”

“Oh, you are. In mine at least. The last one I visited, Paul Davis, who I know as the pentagon’s liaison, was General. And to the Doc, Janet Fraiser is the Chief Medical Officer”

“Never heard that name before.”

“Well, guess her husband was successful in this reality, then. He didn’t want her to join the Air Force, so she divorced him.”

Sam chuckled quietly. Her Sam had always thought that divorcing that man was the best idea Janet had during their entire relationship.

“Dr Carter told me you had said something about Ancients. Are you allied with them?”

“I wish. No, we haven’t yet had the pleasure to meet a living ancient. All we know is that they used to live on Earth, build the Stargates and didn’t like the Goa’uld. Daniel translated their language when Johnathan accidentally downloaded a ancient databank into his brain and began speaking only ancient.”

“Who’s Johnathan?”

“My father. Johnathan is his actual name, he just usually uses only Jack. Anyway, that never happened here, so you never… But that means, you haven’t met the Asgard either, right? Of course not. The first contact was made when Johnathan sought their help to remove the databank, which he only could do thanks to the knowledge it gave him and the Stargate addresses he entered into the system. Without them, you probably still only have the addresses from the Abydos cartouche. Which are Goa’uld, so you never had any addresses of planets that were entirely free of the Goa’uld.”

As the expected, no one could follow her, but it didn’t matter. Even if they did understand, they couldn’t use any of the knowledge they’d gain from it. Alex didn’t know any of those addresses, she couldn’t give them anything.

“You met the Asgard? Those, who fight the Goa’uld?”

“Yes. We became allies with them. But I suppose you’ll meet them eventually. They’ve got an eye on humanity. They think we have potential.”

Again, all Hammond could do was nodding. Then he turned to Dr Wallace, who had re-joined them.

“What have you got, Doctor.”

“Well, she is definitely Colonel O’Neill. She’s a perfect match for the DNA we have in the system. I also found no evidence of any tempering with her brain or any other alien interference.”

“So, could she, theoretically, just be our O’Neill, but having delusions?”

“Theoretically possible. But there is no medical evidence that would explain delusions.”

“I am not delusional. But I am starving, so can I get some breakfast now, please?”

Sam, who had stayed quiet for most of the interrogation, was the only one to react.

“I think it’s almost time for lunch.”

A glance at the clock confirmed that. It was past twelve already. Which meant, she had been in the infirmary for over five hours. About damn time she ate something.

“As long as there’s coffee, I don’t really care how you want to call it.”

“Fine. Major, would you mind accompanying her?”

“Not at all, Sir, I have hundreds of questions anyway”

“I was hoping you’d have.”

However, before they could leave the infirmary, Alex felt that cold, pulling sensation again. She didn’t even have the time to think ‘fuck’ before she hit the floor again. And once she did, she only thought ‘ouch’. Why did it have to hurt so much.


	12. Chapter 12

Groaning, she set up, rubbing her head. If that went on like this, she’d have serious brain damage before she get home again.

“Hands in the air!”

She’d been so busy with being annoyed that she hadn’t even noticed the soldiers, that currently were pointing their guns at her. Slightly surprised she obeyed.

“Now put that bag down!”

Again, she obeyed. She turned to the soldier who had given the orders and found a young man. Younger than her. And familiar. Alex couldn’t say where she knew him from, but she knew him, so much she could say for sure.

“I know you. Where do I know you from?”

She hadn’t seen him on the base before. That she knew. It wouldn’t surprise her so much if she had. No, she knew him from somewhere else, somewhere… more familiar.

“You’re right. I know you from somewhere. Who are you?”

“Alex O’Neill.”

All colour drained from his face and he grabbed his gun tighter. He definitely knew that name, but why would he react to her name like that? And why did he look like he felt guilty?

“That’s impossible.”

“And why is that?”

“Because… because it is. Because I…. Who are you really?”

“I am Lieutenant Colonel Alexandra Jasmine O’Neill.”

“No! You are not.”

He sounded angry, but his facial expression told a different story. He looked sad and desperate and incredibly guilty. But why on earth would he look at her like that?

“What’s going on here?”

Another soldier appeared, one she recognised. Relieved, she relaxed. Johnathan would certainly recognise her. But to her shock, he didn’t. He looked at her for a moment, frowned and turned to the young soldier.

“Who is she?”

“I… I don’t know, but she says she is… she says she is Lexi. She can’t be, right Dad?”

“Dad?!”

Oh lord… Oh bloody lord of hell! That was… it was… that couldn’t be! It was impossible. There was no way… Except, there was.

“Charlie… you’re… you’re Charlie. And you’re grown up.”

Why hadn’t she considered this earlier. Of course it was possible. If there were realities in which Sam and Johnathan were married and expecting, or in which Daniel had died and Kowalski hadn’t, then of course there had to be realities in which Charlie was alive too. Her sweet little baby brother was alive. She couldn’t believe it.

Slowly, Alex made a step forward, she didn’t care about the other soldiers with guns. They probably would have shot her, but Johnathan ordered them to get out, which they actually did. Now it was just them and a few doctors, who kept their distance.

“I never thought I’d see you again. But I guess, in this reality you didn’t shoot yourself, didn’t you? … You… you shot me, instead. That’s why the two of you are so surprised to see me. that day, you didn’t die, I did. I died.”

That was… unexpected. She hadn’t really considered the possibility that she might be dead in other realities.

“How are you alive?”

“I’m not. Not really, at least. I’m from a different reality. One in which you shot yourself. You died, not me. I wasn’t even there. I’m sorry, I’m not your Lexi.”

Johnathan didn’t seem to care about that technicality too much. He put his gun aside and pulled her into a bone crushing hug. And if her eyes didn’t fool her, Alex could have sworn she saw tears running down his cheeks.

“It’s okay… dad. It’s okay.”

Johnathan let her go, smiling at her. But she had been right, he was crying.

“I’m so sorry, Lexi, I… I never wanted to… I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m so sorry.”

Why was everyone crying? Her dad, Charlie… if they didn’t stop soon, she would start crying too.

“It’s okay, Charlie, I know you didn’t want to hurt me. I know it and I promise you, your Lexi knew that too. And she loved you, very, very much.”

“Thank you.”

Johnathan, who by now had regained control over his emotions, cleared his throat.

“Do you mind explaining us how you got here?”

“With pleasure, but I really need something to eat. I’m starving. And I am not going to wait any longer until someone examined me and I explained everything. Did that the last two times and no!”

“Okay, I don’t really understand what you just said, but okay. Lets got to the cafeteria and you’ll explain it to us there. I’ll ask Sam to join us, she understands a little more about realties.”

So, he send Charlie and her ahead to the cafeteria and went to get Sam. They joined them only moments after Alex had sat down with food.

“Hi Sam.”

“So, you are Lexi?”

“Yup.”

“Jack told me a lot about you.”

“Jack? You’re married again?”

“Again?”

Now she had confused them. Upps.

“So, yes?”

“Yes. But what do you mean with again?”

“Well, I think Johnathan told you already that I’m from an alternating reality? See, this isn’t the first reality I… visit. It’s the third, actually. And in the first, you two were married, too. And you were pregnant.”

“Pregnant?”

“Yeah, somewhere seventh or eight month, if you ask me. Talking about.”

While eating with one hand, Alex reached into her bag with the other, pulling out the notebook and wrote down what she already knew and her time of arrival, under the last chapter, her time of departure from the other one.

“So, who’s General?”

“I am.”

Not surprising, Johnathan had saved the world several times and one or twice even the galaxy, so making him the General was probably a logical choice.

“Teal’c?”

“Currently on Chulak, visiting his son.”

“Good for him. Daniel Jackson?”

Johnathan glanced at Sam, both looking uncomfortable.

“Daniel is dead, isn’t he. Poor Danny-Boy. What was it this time?”

“You two are close?”

“He’s a brilliant linguist and archaeologist. We work together a lot. He’s a good friend.”

Johnathan nodded, still looking uncomfortable.

“He was killed by a recent attack on the base, I’m sorry.”

Daniel really had a tendency to die a heroic death, hadn’t he?

“Who’s the chief medical officer?”

“Dr Lam.”

“Huh, don’t know that name. Who’s that?”

“Carolyn Lam, she’s good. Who’s in your reality.”

“Janet Fraiser.”

“Janet? She used to be here, too. But she died in the same attack Daniel died in.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

This all was so weird. After her next jump she would be very likely to see those people again, but their friends would never be able to do so. But she wouldn’t be the Alex they knew, or she would be dead again. Heavens, it was all so messed up.

“Johnathan, as General, you could send me through the Stargate easily, right?”

Usually, she’d know the answer, but who knew how things were handled here. Better to ask.

“Yes. And can you please stop calling me Johnathan? Only my dad does. Why do you call me that anyway?”

“I don’t think you want to know. It’s not a nice story.”

“Tell me anyways. Please Lexi.”

Until now, Alex had never realised how much she had missed her dad calling her that. Not the way he did it in her reality, with regret, but with love and such gentleness.

“In my reality, things are different between us. Always were. My dad… the other you… he was never there for me. Rarely ever visited. It was just me and … _her_. Until I ran away with thirteen. It took me some weeks, but eventually, I moved in with my grandparents. After that, I didn’t saw you again… didn’t want to. Only after Sam needed my help with something… long story… we met again.”

“That’s why you don’t call him dad? Because he was never there for you?”

Sam looked worried, but still asked.

“He used to be somewhat of a father. I used to call him dad, until I was five. When I was little, he came whenever he could. Took me camping a lot. But… then he married. After that… he wasn’t ‘dad’ anymore, he was Johnathan. And that never changed.”

All three looked miserable, like they felt really bad for her. She didn’t want them to, but she knew there was nothing to be done. This Jack O’Neill had loved his daughter dearly and it must pain him to know that there was another him out there who had let his daughter go.

“Just so you know, I took you… her… in when I married Sara. You lived with us until…”

“How did it end, between you and Sara. As far as I know, it was Charlie’s death that ended it in my reality. What was it in yours?”

“Your death. I don’t think it would have made much of a difference. One of our children died.”

Yeah, she could have figured that out. Sara had taken care of her for almost ten years. Enough to love a child as your own. 

“Don’t worry about it, Lexi, please, it was a long time ago. Sara and me are still friends, both of us married again.”

Trying to change the topic, Sam spoke up,

“Why do you want to go through the Stargate? And where would you go?”

“To the planet Daniel found the devise on. If I could find the devise and translate the writings, I could perhaps return to my own instead of finding new realities.”

“Wait, you don’t have the devise and still jump?”

“Yes. Sam, well the Sam from the last reality, thought it might be because there is a quantum level connection between me and the devise. It could be an explanation, but I’m not even sure it really is the devise.”

“Which is why you want to find it, translate the writings that come with it and figure it out”

“Exactly.”

“How regularly do you change realities?”

“I not quite sure yet. The last one lasted roughly six hours. This time, I know when I appeared and once I disappear, I will know. Which reminds me, I need a watch.”

“That will be the least problematic. The off-world mission will be more of a problem.”

“Why?”

Jack and Sam looked at each other for some moment before Sam continued.

“You’ve been here for almost an hour. What if the mission takes longer than expected and you get delayed? You change realities on an alien planet, with no way home.”

“Good point. Then we’ll just won’t take five hours. Please Johnathan. I know where the temple is, you don’t. I’ve been on this planet before.”

“Fine. We don’t have the time to argue. Charlie, you’ll go with her. I’ll inform Colonel Johnson.”

“Johnson? SG9?”

“Yeah. That’s Charlie’s team.”

Half an hour later Alex and SG9 had geared up and were ready to go. Johnathan had already briefed SG9 about the situation and now was standing in the control room with Sam, looking as if he would do anything to not have to let her go. He just didn’t want to lose his daughter again. But he would. She couldn’t stay. Even if she had wanted to.

Though, technically, Johnson was leader of the team, Alex went through the gate first. A glance at the sky told her that they had plenty of time left before nightfall. Good.

“So…Ms O’Neill? Where to now?”

“It’s Colonel O’Neill or Dr O’Neill, and that way. There’s a path there, if we follow it for about… half an hour since we don’t have to waste time looking for traces.”

“Why were you on this planet in your reality.”

“Me and… well, SG9, were looking for May’s team. Just a word of advice, the forest swallows most kinds of signals. The furthest place were contacting the MALP will still be possible is the temple, but it’s a crappy connection.”

“Good to know.”

“Believe me, it is. And you don’t wonna spent the night here. Just in case you ever want to go back here. Anyways, off we go.”

With that, Alex turned around and marched ahead, followed directly by Charlie, who was chuckling about how much she had just confused Johnson.

“Colonel, may I ask a question?”

Behind her, another member of the team had appeared, now switching places with Charlie, who led himself fall back a little, so the two of them could walk next to each other.

“Camila, how are you?”

“You know me?”

“Like I said, I worked with Johnson’s team before. The only difference in my reality is that Charlie is dead, so he can hardly be on the team. In his place a woman named Joan O’Hara is on the team.”

“Joan used to be on the team. She left when she got pregnant.”

“Why is everyone always pregnant? First Sam, now Joan.”

Apparently, she had confused Camila with that because for several minutes she walked next to Alex without saying another word. Only when Alex asked her what her question had been, she spoke up.

“I just… In your reality, you said you were on this planet to rescue May’s team.”

“Yeah. They got lost in the woods behind the temple. Are you married to May in this reality, too?”

“So, we’re married in yours?”

“Yes. And in this one?”

Camila shook her head, starring at the ground.

“I’ve been thinking about proposing to her.”

Before Alex could say anything, they heard Charlie behind them say, “I knew it.”

Both women turned around to him, which resulted in an emabressed smile.

“Sorry. It’s just that me and dad have been talking about it recently because Blake wanted to propose to his girlfriend. And O’Hara just married.”

“Your father knows too?”

The shock in her voice made Lexi laugh, “Don’t let the goofy behaviour fool you. He knows more than he leads on.”

“Still… oh dear. But you don’t think that Lizzy knows, do you?”

“Nah. Don’t think so. I don’t know.”

Charlie really was a lot like Johnathan. She wondered if she had been this way too, had Johnathan raised her. Then again, it didn’t really matter, did it? He hadn’t raised her and instead had left her to rot with her mother. No use in wondering about what ifs. It was long gone and she would never get it back. And she really couldn’t complain about her life. She was a renowned scientist, travelled through the galaxy and… was currently stuck in an alternative reality, with less than three hours before she would jump into the next. Which was exactly what she should focus on. Not her father.

About half an hour later they finally reached the edge of the woods and stepped onto the clearing, where the temple was. Just that it wasn’t there.

“Didn’t you say…”

“I did… it was. I… I have no idea why it’s not here.”

Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! That meant she had wasted almost two hours in total for nothing. Nothing whatsoever! Shit.

The team spent another half hour looking around, finding nothing but ruins. Although it explained where the temple went, it really didn’t help her. And the clock was ticking. By now they were down to little over ninety minutes left.

“We should get back. I really don’t want to get stranded here.”

So, they returned to the SGC. It was a rather short debriefing, which, on Alex’s request took place only after she got the chance to take a shower. She had been up and running for some time now and had really needed it. The debrief didn’t even take five minutes. After that, Sam, Johnathan, Charlie and Lexi sat in the conference room, thinking about what to do next.

“What will happen now?”

“I’ll jump into the next reality in about twenty minutes. And what will happen then, I’ll see when I get there.”

“Do you need anything?”

Jack clearly wasn’t happy that he hadn’t been able to help her. And he didn’t want her to leave.

“No. I’ve got everything. I think. I’ve got my bag and a watch. And fresh cloths. I already see it coming, a trace of uniforms form different realities shattered all over the multiverse.”

Sam seemed to be the only one who found that amusing. Both Jack and Charlie just seemed sad. But she couldn’t help them, she had to leave. There simply was no way around it.

And then it was time to say goodbye. With a heavy heart, she hugged her brother tightly.

“It was great to meet you again, Charlie. And I’m glad to see you all grown up.”

“Same, sister mine. It’s good to know that there are realities out there in which you are alive and well.”

Sam just wished her good luck and Jack would even let go of her. But he had to. Alex could already feel the cold creeping over her. The last thing she saw were her brother and father smiling at her with more love than she could ever have imagined.


	13. Chapter 13

Once again, Alex hit the ground. Next time she had to lie down before jumping! That or she soon would be covered in bruises.

“You need help down there?”

Turning her head, a little, Alex could see that she wasn’t alone. At the table sat a group of soldiers and SG1. Daniel was the one who had spoken.

“Hi, Danny-Boy. Good to see you’re alive.”

“Thanks. I’ve always been, but thanks. What are you doing on the floor?”

“And how did you get down there?”

That was Johnson.

“Long story.”

By now, Alex had finally found the motivation to get up.

“How’s it going?”

“You mean, besides the Goa’uld attack on the alpha base and the fact that they’ll be here within less than two hours? No bad, I guess.”

“Oh, Hi Jonathon. Wait, did you say the Goa’uld are coming here? Well, now that is inconvenient.”

“Don’t you say.”

“Are you okay, Jas? You’re behaving rather strange.”

Yeah, she could imagine that.

“Short version? I’m not your Alex, I’m from another reality. I jump into a new one every six hours and have no idea how to stop it.”

“Long version?”

“Daniel brought me a devise, which I didn’t even activate, as far as I can tell. Just worked with the writing in the temple it was found. Still, I woke up in a different reality, scaring the living shit out of Daniel, when I pointed my gun at him because he was in my bed.”

“Well, not that I want to think about that at all, but I think he spends a lot of nights in your bed, seeing as you are married.”

Surprised, Alex starred at her dad, then turned to Daniel.

“We are what?”

“Married. For almost a year now.”

“W…ow.”

She almost had asked him why. But that would probably have been offensive. And she didn’t want to offend Daniel.

“Didn’t see that coming. Anyways, more importantly, the Goa’uld are attacking soon? Which one?”

“Apophis.”

“Great. Are the Asgard coming to help you?”

“We hope so, but we can’t be sure.”

“Great.”

Alex shook her head. She could have seen that coming. Of course, there were plenty of realities currently under attack.

“So, just so I know what’s going on, SG1 is Sam, Johnathan, Daniel and Teal’c, right?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Just getting an overview. When did the attack on the Alpha base happened?”

“Yesterday.”

“What time?”

“Three o’clock in the afternoon. Why?”

“Good news, then. If this reality goes as mine did, you’ll have three hours left before the Goa’uld ships come and land on this mountain.”

“So, I was right. The pyramids were landing spots for ships!”

“Of course, you were right, Daniel. You usually are.”

“Well, thanks Jas.”

“You still got me in this mess, so I’m still somewhat mad at you! And I don’t think I like this marriage thing. It’s weird enough when those two are married.”

Alex pointed at a very confused Sam and then at her father.

“We’re not married.”

“Bad for you. … But not important now.”

If this kept going on much longer, Alex would lose her mind. She already was too confused to remember they were about to be attacked by the Goa’uld for longer than a few minutes. It just kept slipping her mind. For a moment, she buried her face in her hands, sighing deeply. A dull pain slowly expanded form her temples.

“What’s your plan?”

“We were just working on that when you disappeared from there and showed up on the floor again.”

“Oh, I disappeared? Interesting. I already wondered where the other me went when I came. I dearly hope they’re fine and come back once I leave.”

“Will you leave again?”

“In six hours. Assuming I’m not dead by then. Good thing, though, if she does come back, you’ll get your wife back, without her having been involved in the attack. Perhaps even if I die.”

What would happen if she died? Would she just keep jumping into new realities and scare people there? Now, that was a disturbing thought. Hopefully, she would not do that. Perhaps she would just return to her own reality. At least that way she would only scare one version of her father. Or she would just stay here. That was a possibility too. Maybe she could only jump while she was alive. That would mean her father would never know what happened to her. What did her dad think happened to her? By now she would have been gone for almost an entire day. Of course, assuming that time passed the same in every reality. Maybe it did, maybe it didn’t.

“Well, let’s not find that out. I’m sure your father would like you to return safely as much as I want my Lex to return safely.”

“In that case, we need a battle plan. So, are you allied with the Asgard?”

“Somewhat.”

“Well, if you are allied with them, and they aren’t too busy right now, they’ll come help you. If they don’t, you’ll have to sacrifice this mountain.”

“What?”

Most the present soldiers where shocked, but Johnathan just nodded, Sam sighed,

“We figured that too. Assuming they’ll attack here first.”

“They will. They’ll land here, bring the Stargate under their control and then go on and attack major cities all over the world. Once they did that, there’s nothing you can do anymore, then, only the Asgard can save you.”

“How do you know all that?”

“In the past, my reality’s Daniel was transported into a different reality that was currently under attack and we once were visited by another Sam and another Kowalski, and my SG1 helped them contact the Asgard. That’s how I know. In my reality, the Asgard prevented most of that. I’m hoping they will do the same here.”

“You’re hoping?”

“I could of course go and ask them to come save you. That is, if you have enough energy to gate into another galaxy? You don’t happen to have a ZPM lying around somewhere, do you?!”

“Alright, no need to get sarcastic.”

“I’m your daughter, what did you expect?”

“She has a point there, Sir.”

“Thanks Carter, not helping.”

Alex rolled her eyes, “None of this is helping. So, how about we all get off our asses and start prepping the SGC for the attack.”

“What for? Didn’t you just say to blow it up?”

“As a last resort! I do not want to die here! If you have a death wish, by all means, be the first line of defence. I don’t intend to die today. And I would prefer if no one else did either.”

The poor airman looked very humiliated and insecure. But Alex wasn’t in the mood to feel bad for him. Chance was, she’d never see him again anyway, if he’d survive.

“So, you have a defence plan, or do you need me for that too?”

“We do have defence plans, thank you.”

“Well done.”

Jup, being irritated and having a headache was really not good for her politeness or patience. Still, she should probably stop snapping at everyone talking to her.

“If that’s all for now, I’ll go find myself a painkiller and perhaps a gun. Maybe get some sleep. But definitely a gun. When did I eat last? Whatever. Painkiller, then gun, then everything else. Any objection?”

The present soldiers collectively shook their heads. Probably thought she was crazy. Well, maybe they were right. Alex hadn’t yet completely ruled out the possibility of having a mental breakdown and imagining all this.

Alex did not get to sleep. But she hadn’t really expected that. After she had gotten a painkiller from Dr Fraiser, who she was very happy to see, Sam came in, asking her to tell her everything she knew about the impending attack. Once that was done, Jack came, to talk over the defence plan and improve it if necessary.

And then it was already time to get to battle stations. As Alex had suspected, it had taken the Goa’uld three hours instead just two. But now, the ship was descending, about to land on the mountain. Next to Alex was SG1.

“You’re ready?”

“Yes. Once they land, we’ll activate self-destruct, set to three hours. That way, you’ll get out, one way or another. The mountain will blow up five minutes after you jump.”

“Assuming I live that long.”

“Let’s hope that.”

“Let’s just hope it won’t come to that.” 

For a moment, Alex imagined how the other Lex had to feel, she’d return to her reality from wherever she’d been, probably confused, into a SGC that was about to blow up. Alex couldn’t do that to her. Shaking her head, she tried to chase the thoughts away. She didn’t matter, neither Alex nor Lexi mattered. If destroying the SGC and everyone in it was the only way to keep the entire world save than it was a sacrifice she was willing to make and by the looks of it, everyone around her was too. No matter how much she hated the thought of all these people dying, there was nothing to be done about that. Or was there?

“I have an idea, it’s batshit crazy and will probably do no good, but…”

“We’re way past crazy. What is it?”

“Do the Russians have a Stargate?”

“I think so, why?”

“Do you have the coordinates of a Tok’ra planet?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Oh…”

Sam realised what Alex was thinking about.

“You want to evacuate them?”

“Only the scientists and only if we have to blow it up. But… I just don’t want them to die here. Not if they don’t need to.”

“But… we can’t just… decide who lives and who dies.”

Daniel looked like the thoughts caused him a serious headache.

“We won’t. Johnathan, I need you to tell everyone that, once the last ten minutes of the countdown have started, they have to fall back to the Gate. Everyone who’s alive and wants to leave should get the chance.”

What came now, Alex didn’t want to say, she didn’t even want to think it, but she had too.

“That way, if all goes south… there will still be… humans left.”

Well, weren’t that happy news. But it was the truth, and they needed to plan with the total elimination of Earth.

“Anyways, they’re almost here. We should inform everyone.”

Jack turned to Walter, who nodded grimly and put him on.

“Listen up, everybody. It’s time. I know it looks bad. We’re depending on luck here. Depending on the Asgard to come and safe us. But if they don’t, we will blow this mountain to hell and the Goa’uld along with it. But that doesn’t mean that all of you have to die here. You don’t. Ten minutes before self-destruct, everyone is allowed to evacuate through the Stargate and from there seek refuge with the Tok’ra. Until then, we will fight, and we will send them to hell. Good luck.”

With a deep sigh, Jack turned back to SG1, nodding gravely. There was nothing left to say. No words of hope or encouragement. They all knew that there was almost no hope. No way out. Not for most of them. Alex just had to stay alive for three more hours. Not that complicated, not compared to what the rest had to face. Next to her was Daniel, gripping his gun tightly, he looked determined, but more than anything, he looked scared.

“It will be okay, Danny-Boy.”

Daniel nodded solemnly, “It will. It has to be.”

Seeing her friends this way, knowing that the people of this reality would very likely die pained Alex, it pained her so much she wanted to cry.

Taking a last deep breath, they raised their weapons before all hell broke loose.

Time seemed to stand still. A selfish part of Alex desperately wished for the jump to finally happen. There were so many Jaffa, no matte how many they killed, more came. Alex had taken a group of soldiers to the corridors hoping to get as many as possible to the Gateroom and to maybe get a handle on the invasion. It was impossible. They were outnumbered and outgunned. Every time one of her soldiers was killed, Alex’s heart seemed to break a little more. By now, she was down to only five soldiers, they had started out as a group of over twenty. And not only they were being killed. Wherever they went, there were bodies on the floor, some were Goa’uld, but the overwhelming majority of them were human.

“Alex!”

She had just went around a corner and, other than expected, had found no Goa’uld there. Instead, there was Johnathan, covered in dust and blood, but alive and angry. And he wasn’t alone either. With him were a handful of soldiers.

“Johnathan! Where are Sam and Daniel and Teal’c?”

“Daniel’s overseeing the evacuation.”

A glance on her wristwatch told Alex that there was just about twenty minutes left to the explosion. They must have decided to start evacuating early. Probably for the best. There was no way to win this.

“And the rest?”

“Leading their own teams. Hoping to keep those bastards away from the Gate long enough.”

Alex didn’t have time to do more than nod, then a group of Goa’uld came around the same corner she had just a minute ago.

“Take cover!”

It was just a small group, luckily. Manageable, though not easily. Several times Alex could hear one of the comrades getting hit, praying it wasn’t lethal. The moment the last of their attackers sank to the group, she spun around, checking on the others. Less then half of them were still standing. Three had been killed, five wounded. Among them Jonathan. For a heartbeat Alex thought he had been killed and it felt like eternity. Groaning, he tried to sit up, but he was too weak. Rushing to his side, Alex frantically tried to get the bleeding under control. But the flesh wound from stone fragments wasn’t the problem. The problem was the blast from the stuff weapon. It was a miracle he was still alive.

“No! NO! Please no. Please god, no!”

“Colonel, we have to go. They’re coming!”

One of the soldiers tried to pull her to her feet but she pushed him away.

“I’m not leaving him!”

“He’s as good as dead, Ma’am! And so are you if we don’t leave NOW!”

“That’s my father you fucking idiot and I won’t leave him.”

Somewhere far back in her brain a quiet voice whispered that the soldier was right, that she couldn’t stay her. If she did, she would die.

“Dad, c’mon, get up Dad, please!”

“I’m begging you, Ma’am, please come with me!”

“GO! Go…”

Her voice broke, turning into a sob. Tears were streaming down her face like waterfalls, blurring her few. Her fingers dug deep into Johnathan’s shirt as she shook him.

“Get up! Please Dad, please!”

“It’s okay… Lexi… my baby… I’ll see Charlie again…”

“No… no… please… please don’t leave me. Don’t…”

Alex felt as if her chest would burst, her stomach, her heart, her lungs, they all were getting harder and heavier.

“I… love… you…sweet pea.”

Her fingers, still grasping his shirt, could feel the air leaving her father’s lung one last time as his heart stopped beating. Gasping for air, a sound she barely recognised as human escaped her throat. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t see, she couldn’t think. All she could do was feel the pain. The overwhelming pain that felt like a giant fist had gripped her and was crashing her, squashing every little bit of live out of her.

But it didn’t. And after some moments she regained a little control. Tears were still blinding her, but at least she could think again. Enough to know that there were steps getting closer. Heavy steps, those of the Goa’uld. Of many of them.

‘Fine’, she thought, ‘Than this is how I die.’

With a last glance at Jack’s lifeless body, Alex rose, sobbing quietly.

“I’m sorry, Dad. I love you too.”

She grabbed her gun. Anger was burning in her, hot red anger, it gave her strength, she could feel her heart beating inside her chest, strong and fast, she could feel new adrenalin rushing through her veins, her muscles tightened. She was ready for this. They would pay. They would pay for Johnathan. They would pay with their lives. She wasn’t even afraid when she stepped up into the larger corridor, right in front of what had to be over two dozen Jaffa warriors.

“You. Will. Die.”

And with that, she fired. And fired. And fired. She fired until she was out of ammunition. But even then, she didn’t stop attacking. Without thinking she threw aside her gun, jumping forward. Right into her own death.

Just that she didn’t die. She didn’t even have time to hit a Jaffa. While still in the air she felt the familiar sensation, pulling her from this reality into another.


	14. Chapter 14

When she hit the floor face on, she was almost sorry. Not for the other Alex, who would return to her life just to die less than five meters away from her father, not for Daniel, who would lose his wife, if he was even still alive, not for Sam or Teal’c who had lost so many of their friends, or for Earth. No, she was sorry that all those soldiers had died, that Jack had died, and she hadn’t. Just for a moment she wished that she had had just a minute more. One minute… one more minute… to die. Around her, she could hear steps, people moving quickly, gathering around her. But Alex didn’t even care enough to look up. Everything was hurting and she was tired and exhausted. She just wanted to lie here and not do anything. By now, the people had come to a stop, the soldiers had positioned around her, Alex could see boots less then a meter away from her.

“Is she dead?”

“How would I know?”

The first solder sigh and growled something, before directing his words at Alex.

“Hey you! If you can hear me get up slowly, hands in the air and don’t do anything stupid!”

“And if she can’t hear you?”

“Then she’s probably dead. And not my problem anymore.”

The second soldier gave a sound of definite annoyance and stepped closer, kneeling down next to Alex head. Carefully, he put his hand on her shoulder and rolled her on her back. Seconds later, he had jumped back in surprise when he found her eyes open, starring at him.

“Fuck!”

“I guess, she’s still alive.”

That came from a third soldier and this time, Alex actually looked at the speaker. It was Paul Davis. Happy about the familiar face, Alexandra sat up, which caused every soldier present to point their gun at her.

Semi-curiously, Alex watched Paul examine her, but he didn’t seem to recognise her.

“Can you hear me, Miss?”

With a scoff she let herself drop back on the floor.

“I think we need the Doc down here. And one of the linguists, maybe we’ll find someone who speaks her language.”

Five minutes later, a doctor and some nurses came and, after a short examination heaved her on a bed and took her to the infirmary, where they did some tests. Alex didn’t protest any of it. Should they do whatever they wanted, it wasn’t like it would make a difference or change anything. She was stuck here, one way or another and she would jump into the next reality, one way or another, and she would meet her friends, who didn’t know her, she would probably even see Jack again… just to jump again.

After some time, Alex didn’t know how long and she didn’t care either, the examination was done and she was left alone. Until Paul came back. But he wasn’t alone, Daniel was with him. Seeing her friend look at her like she was a stranger almost made her cry.

“Hi. Again.”

Paul positioned himself at the end of her bed, while Daniel sat down on a chair at her side.

“Hey, I’m Daniel Jackson. Do you understand me?”

Unable to look at Daniel, Alex starred straight ahead at the ceiling, which Daniel apparently took as an indication for her not speaking English.

“Tú hablas español? а ты говоришь по русски?”

Daniel waited a few moments before turning to Paul, “Maybe she just can’t hear us? Or she doesn’t talk?”

“Or maybe, she’s traumatised by whatever happened to her.”

The Doctor had joined them.

“What has happened to her?”

“I don’t know, but she has burns on one of her arms, a cut on the forehead and even a bullet wound. She’s also covered in bruises, mostly from the last 24 hours. If I had to guess, she’d been a fight recently. And judging by the dirt and blood on her cloth, it didn’t go well.”

“So, there’s a chance that she actually hears us and could answer to us, but just doesn’t want to?”

“Doesn’t want to or can’t. I don’t know, I’m not a psychologist.”

Great, now they wanted her to be psych evaluated. Something she really wasn’t in the mood for. And it wouldn’t be of any use either. Them again, neither was lying around and starring at the ceiling.

“I don’t need a psychologist. I need a quantum physicist.”

Astonished by her words, all three men starred at her for several seconds. Daniel was the first to react.

“A quantum physicist? Why?”

“So, you do speak English.”

“Yes, Daniel, I speak English, I speak Spanish, English, French, Latin, German, Egyptian, Russian and a little Danish. Not the point here, though.”

“okay. How about you tell us what happened to you?”

“Your doctor was pretty spot on. I was in a battle, it didn’tgo well. I don’t want to talk about it. I’d rather want to talk about quantum physics. Who is your best in that field?”

“Doctor Rodney McKay.”

“Oh fuck.”

McKay was the worst! He was an arrogant, selfish asshole. They had met several times and Alex had proved him wrong more than once, which he hadn’t taken well.

“Care to explain what’s going on?”

“Unless you happen to have a PhD here, I doubt you will understand, Paul. No offence. Hell, even I don’t.”

“It’s General Davis.”

“General? Huh. Did not see that coming. But hey, congratulations.”

Alex really didn’t give a shit about his rank and accordingly unenthusiastic was her tone.

“Do we know each other?”

“No. Yes. Well… You don’t know me, I kinda know you. Like I said, long story I doubt you’ll understand. So, if I may, I’d like to talk to McKay.”

 _General Davis_ nodded slightly irritated and told one of the airmen, who had been standing on the wall, keeping an eye on her, to fetch McKay and get him here.

“Oh, one question, my bag, where is it?”

“Why, need a gun?”

“Nah, you can keep the gun. On second thought, I might need it later… But right now, I need the notebook inside and one of the pens.”

Lex wasn’t really in the mood to think about the last three hours, but she hated to neglect her journal. Sloppy records were the worst. Hesitantly, Paul handed her the satchel and watched her closely as she pulled the book out.

“What’s that?”

“My notes.”

“Notes about what?”

“This.”

“Wow, that clears up everything.”

“Sarcasm doesn’t suite you, Paul.”

“Would you please explain to me how you know me?”

“Didn’t I just tell you that you won’t understand anyways?”

“Well, why don’t you give it a try?”

“Fine. About twenty-four hours ago I activated an Ancient device that creates a quantum spatial anomaly, causing me to alternate between different realities periodically.”

“Fine, you’re right. I didn’t understand any of it.”

“I did and it’s impossible.”

McKay had joined them and apparently, he was still as arrogant as always.

“Shut up, Meredith, you’ve always been narrow-minded and unimaginative. So please, just for once, if you have nothing helpful and, emphasis on the _and_ , actually intelligent to say, please just shut the hell up!”

“Meredith?”

While McKay was getting all flustered about being told off, Daniel was mostly curious about the name.

“It’s his name. Meredith Rodney McKay. Seeing as he usually behaves like a impudent, spoiled brat with a bad temper, the name is mother used when he misbehaved seemed adequate.”

“How would you know what my mother calls me?!”

“I already told you that. Now, seeing as this McKay is about as useful as a trashcan, can I maybe get Dr Jean Miller? Or Sam Carter? Preferably both, but one would be enough.”

“My sister? How do you know my sister?”

“I worked with her. On several occasions met with her, mostly just for dinner, though. So? Can we maybe get her on the phone? And what about Sam Carter? Where is she? There’s no possible reality in which she’s here and McKay is leading physicist.”

“I never heard the name. Who is she?”

To Alex’s surprise, it was McKay who answered.

“Just the most brilliant astrophysicist in the world. She works in Area 51. Or did until she died five years ago.”

“Dead, you say? Huh. What about Jack O’Neill? Where is he?”

“Died on Abydos, when the Stargate was activated first.”

“Interesting. You know anything about his family?”

“How would I? Never met him.”

“Not talking to you, Paul. I’m talking to Daniel. Daniel?”

“He told me about his daughter. She and her mother died during birth. Never had another family. Why? Do you know him?”

“You could say so. And Teal’c, where’s the big guy?”

“You mean Apophis’ first primus? Dead, as far as I know. Died when General Davis blew up Apophis’ ship.”

“Ah, great. So literally all of SG-1 is dead, except for you, Danny-Boy. Good for you.”

“Yeah, well, that might be because I don’t go on dangerous missions. I have a wife and a child I have to be there for.”

“Sha’re is alive?”

Daniel nodded, though a little disturbed by the thought that there’s a reality in which she wasn’t.

“That’s great. I’m very happy for you. And you’re a dad. that’s… wow.”

“Yeah. A little boy, Johnny. I named him after Jack because he saved our lives.”

“He would love that. Anyways, enough catching up. If Meredith is all I can get, he’ll have to be enough.”

With a resigned sigh, Alex closed the notebook and got up.

“How about, before you go anywhere, you tell us your name and maybe explain where you came from in a way that all of us understand it?!”

Just for a moment, Alex could actually see General Davis rather than the dorky Major she knew. And she had to admit, she kinda liked it. She had always known that Paul was determined and headstrong, but he never really put that to use. Her Paul had been content with being a major because it gave him enough free time to go to Star Trek conventions and to work on his piano skills, something that was more than necessary. But apparently, this Paul Davis was a little different.

“Fine. My name is Alex O’Neill, I’m from another reality, in which I’m the daughter of Jack O’Neill.”

“Another reality?”

“It’s impossible.”

“What did I tell you about unhelpful and not intelligent comments, Meredith?”

“You’re condescending.”

“Happens when I’m dealing with you. Sorry?”

“Okay… I won’t pretend to understand. Just, one more thing, how long will you be staying?”

Hey, at least Davis admitted he didn’t understand. Lex glanced at her wristwatch, but it was broken. Not surprising.

“Can I perhaps get a new watch? Knowing what time it is is kinda important.”

Daniel, who had been rather quiet the last few minutes, just shrugged his shoulders, took his own watch off and handed it to her.

“Thanks, Danny. And to answer your question, General, I’ll leave in about five hours. Inevitably. Anything else or can I get to work?”

She didn’t like this reality, too many dead people, but she could at least use the time to get some research done. Unless she’d murder McKay, which was always a serious option when he was involved. Since nobody argued, McKay led her to his lab, where she took over his computer, which he did not like at all.

Well, good news: She managed to spent the next couple of hours working with McKay without strangling him or doing as much as hitting him, bad news: Their research didn’t give her any new findings, it had being a complete waste of valuable time and nerves. And it got her nothing! Not a damn thing.

“You know, McKay, I have to admit, you’re not the worst version of yourself.”

“There’s a compliment in there, right?”

“No. It’s just an insult to the McKay from my reality. You’re still insufferable narrow-minded, I’m just glad you’re not as arrogant and unreasonable as you could be.”

“Again, it sounds like there might be a compliment in there, but I still only feel offended.”

“You’ve been offended by far less offensive things before.”

“Again, very not nice!”

“I’m not trying to be nice, McKay! I’m annoyed, I’m hungry, I’m tired and exhausted, I’m in pain! I saw my dad die just a few hours ago! I’m going to jump into god knows what kind of reality in a couple of minutes! I really don’t give a single shit about your feelings!”

“I… I didn’t know about your father, I’m sorry.”

“Hm. Whatever.”

Screaming at McKay hadn’t done a thing. Alex had hoped that it would ease the frustration building up inside her, but it hadn’t. Now she just felt bad. He hadn’t done anything, and he had actually tried to be helpful, despite still not believing that she was from another reality.

“I just want to go home. To get a full eight hours of sleep. Well, at least I might get a shower and some food in the next one. I’m-”

McKay didn’t get to hear the end of that sentence. All he got was a deeply annoyed sigh and then Alex was gone.


	15. Chapter 15

And boom. Another floor.

“-so sick of this.”

Though she knew McKay wasn’t around to listen to her anymore, she still wanted to finish the sentence because she still wholeheartedly agreed with it.

Looking around the lab, Alex realised she was alone, which she could had guessed, of course, because nobody had screamed in surprise or asked her if she was okay or where she came from. With a sigh, Alex pushed herself up. Time to find someone in charge. If there was one thing she loved about the SGC more than anything it was the continuity of it. Whatever reality she had been in so far, she always knew her way around because the SGC was the same. So, five minutes later, she stood in front of the General’s office, but as she wanted to knock a soldier approached her.

“General! There you are! Major Davis is looking for you all over!”

Okay? That was more than peculiar. But hey, at least Paul was Major again. Shrugging her shoulders, Alex decided to just play along. No reason to tell him she wasn’t who he thought she was. That she could discuss with Paul and hopefully Sam.

“Well, tell him I’m waiting here for him.”

It felt a bit odd to just march into the General’s office like that, but apparently it was Alex’s office anyways. Besides the pictures, this version of the office was no different from Hammond’s. The pictures however made all the difference. There where pictures of her and Charlie, teenager Charlie, to be precise, her dad, Sam, and a boy she didn’t know and … one of her and Paul… and they obviously seemed to be in love. Huh, now that she hadn’t seen coming. Like so many other things so far.

Luckily, Paul didn’t let her wait long. Five minutes later, which Alex used to finish the last journal entry and start a new one, he appeared in the doorframe, looking a little messy. Instead of the usual uniform, he wore just the pants and a simple black shirt.

“Where the hell did you go!”

“Hi Paul.”

“Ahm, hi?”

The poor man seemed a little lost. Then again, so was Alex.

“Come in, sit down. And best close the door.”

Still confused, he obeyed.

“What’s going on Jassy?”

Jassy? Huh. That had been what Daniel from the first alternative reality had called her too. Apparently, her relationships didn’t like to call her Alex or Lexi. Then again, she was glad about not being called Lexi, that was what her dad used to call her when she was little, which probably was the reason none of her boyfriends that knew her dad called her that.

“Well… that might sound a little crazy, but… I’m not Jasmine. Not the one you know at least. I’m from a different reality.”

“Okay… that does sound more than a little crazy.”

“Imagine how I feel. How the hell did I become General?”

“You took over when your father died.”

“Ah… so Jack’s dead. Again. Why does this man always die?”

“I don’t know about always, but he died last year in a robbery, protecting Sam and your brother.”

“Charlie? Or that boy here?”

Alex pointed at the second photograph on her desk.

“You really aren’t Jas, are you? That boy is called Jacob. He’s your brother.”

“After Sam’s dad? Interesting. Okay. So, Jack died to protect Sam and … their son?”

“Yes.”

“Okay… okay. So, where’s Sam now?”

“Area 51. She wanted a job where she won’t die. You talk to her every couple of days.”

“Okay. And… where are Daniel and Teal’c?”

“Teal’c is on Chulak and Daniel is in his lab, I guess.”

Nodding, Alex wrote all of that down.

“So, you’re from a different reality.”

“Yeah, and no, I have no idea where your girlfriend went, sorry.”

“My wife, actually.”

That made Alex look up again, a little shocked.

“Wife?! There’s a version of me that married you?”

“No need to sound so excited about it, Jas.”

“Sorry. But hey, at least I didn’t point my gun at you because I woke up with someone in my bed, no idea who and why… man, I scared the shit out of Daniel.”

“Daniel? In your bed?”

“Yeah, apparently there’s a reality in which I am in a relationship with him. And another in which I’m married to him. Which is odd, really. Anyway, I take it Charlie is alive too?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t he?”

“Because in my reality he shot himself when he was a kid. In another one he shot me. Long story.”

Paul just nodded.

“Why did you ask me where I went, earlier? So far, I’ve shown up where the other me had been.”

“Because we had a little conversation earlier and when I turned around you were gone.”

“Do I want to know what you were talking about?”

“Children. Or, well, about having some.”

“Oh, I guess the other me wasn’t too excited about that idea, now was she?”

“No, not really. She said she’d have kids if I would be the one giving birth.”

“Damn right!”

That actually made Paul laugh, “You know, you aren’t so different from her.”

“Good to know. I think… I’m a lot like me… not the craziest thing I’ve heard lately.”

“Yeah, I can imagine. You must have seen some interesting things.”

“You mean, like the face Daniel makes when unexpectedly having a gun pointed at him by his girlfriend?”

“Like that.”

“Well, I did meet my dead brother again, that was great. And I saw my father die, which was not so great. Also, I was dead in the last one, that was mostly weird.”

“Wow…?”

“Oh, and you were General in that one… actually, now that I think of it, you were General in another one too. One in which I was with Daniel… was it the one I was married to him? No, Hammond was General in that one, I think. Wait a second.”

That’s why she had wrote all of that down. So, instead of thinking about it any longer, she just looked it up in her journal.

“Ah, there we go. It was the one I pointed my gun at Daniel, so the first one. Which was the last one I slept in, I think.”

“And which is this?”

“Number six. Which means I haven’t gotten a proper night of sleep in three days… maybe four, don’t know. And I won’t, because every six hours I’ll get thrown into another reality. In some I’m married, in some I’m dead, in some I’ll get shot by Goa’uld.”

“What?”

“Yeah, wasn’t fun. More fun than working with McKay, that incompetent idiot.”

“You know, you are a little grumpy. How about we get you something to eat, then maybe a nice, warm shower and then you’ll sleep four a couple of hours. How does that sound?”

“Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

“Alright, lets go get some food.”

“Just one more thing, can you do me a favour?”

“Sure, love.”

“If I give you the name of a planet, could you find everything you have on it, especially on a temple and artefacts on this planet and give it to me within, say five hours?”

“Sure. Why?”

“Because I need to figure out how to get home. And, while you do that, I’ll go shower, have some breakfast/lunch/dinner/whatever and then take a nap. Wake me up in five hours, will you?”

“Okay, if that’s what you want.”

“You are awesome.”

“Thanks.”

A little over five hours later, the two of them sat in her office again, going through everything they had on said planet.

“Hey Jasmine, I think I found your artefact.”

“You have?”

“Yeah, but it was destroyed. Jackson found it in the ruins of the temple, couldn’t figure out what it was supposed to do and send it to Area 51. But here are his notes.”

His notes weren’t anything else but the writings from the temple, or what had been left of it. But it was more than she had before, so Alex was grateful. Maybe it would give her more information about the device. Back home she hadn’t managed to translate all of it, so there was still hope.

“You can keep it, we got it all on the computers, anyway.”

“Perfect, then I can deal with it later. Anything else that could be helpful?”

“I took the liberty and got you all the information I could find on alternative realities.”

“Ah, you are awesome.”

“You said that before, still thanks.”

“Well, I knew there must have been a reason for me to marry you!”

“Now that… I’m not sure if that’s a compliment.”

“Yes!”

Paul laughed, then shook his head.

“You really are a lot like her. And thanks, I always hoped she had a reason to marry me, other than boredom.”

“Well, I wouldn’t marry just because I’m bored, so much for sure.”

Again, Paul chuckled, but didn’t say anything else.

For some more minutes, they went through the files, then it was time.

“I’ll be leaving soon. Means your wife will be home soon.”

“I’m glad to hear that. But you take care of yourself, will you? Don’t get shot again, okay?”

“I’ll see what I can do, but I can’t make any promises. Oh, and, if you really want children, try adopting. She’d probably be on bord with that, seeing as she won’t have to grow a human being in her belly.”

The last thing Alex saw was Paul laughing, then everything vanished and she was pulled into yet another reality.


End file.
